


The Scheherazade of Supernatural

by mittensmorgul (MittenWraith)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Archived From Mittensmorgul Blog, Archived From Tumblr, M/M, Meta Essay, Nonfiction, The Scheherazade of Supernatural
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-16 11:59:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 217
Words: 255,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16953612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MittenWraith/pseuds/mittensmorgul
Summary: A (rather large) selection of my Destiel meta posts on tumblr, archived under the tag "The Scheherazade of Supernatural," and dating back to October 2014. Some of my posts from this tag have been archived here separately, in other meta collection posts. There may be a few duplicated here for the sake of completeness.





	1. Chapter 1

[Oct 22, 2014](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/100674015035/at-first-i-thought-it-was-weird-that-while)

4 notes

At first I thought it was weird that, while talking to Dean, Cas referred to Hannah as “a female.” Dean knows Hannah. She was the one who refused to let him take an angel blade into that interrogation room last season. She was also the one pushing Cas to “punish” Dean, the one whose actions prompted Cas to abandon his army in favor of keeping Dean safe. Cas knows that’s the extent of Dean’s interactions with Hannah.  
  


Dean’s been all demony since Cas and Hannah started hanging out together. He wouldn’t know about Hannah’s ongoing lessons on humanity, or how she’s legitimately seemed to be helping Cas during the weeks that Dean’s been MIA. It seems obvious that Cas wouldn’t risk her presence inciting some revenge urge in demon!Dean while Dean’s cure was still uncertain. I can see why he wouldn’t let her into the bunker until he was sure the demon cure had worked. But then Cas leaves without explaining anything more about WHY he’s leaving than “I have a female in the car.” Weird, right?

Maybe not. Dean still, as far as we know, has no idea what Cas has been up to since the end of last season. Crowley had been feeding Dean info on Sam, but we have no mention of him doing the same with Cas. which also raises quite a few questions. Dean also only saw Cas once Crowley powered him back up with Adina’s grace. Dean has NO IDEA how sick and weak Cas had become. He only saw the grace-bandaid-infused version of his friend.

So what purpose does it serve to have Cas refer to Hannah simply as “a female?” There were SO MANY OTHER CHOICES he could have made when referring to her in this scene. He could’ve said “an angel” or “my sister” or “a friend” or “someone who helped me get here” or any number of other things that wouldn’t have set my teeth a little on edge.

Was Cas trying to downplay Hannah’s importance to him by referring to her that way? Was he taking a jab at Dean? And if so, how? And why? Obviously it was the end of the episode, but it felt like Cas rushed himself out the door. And Dean was left with the impression that he rushed off for this “female.”

Dang. I really wish we were left with the impression that Cas stuck around at least long enough for a talk about what else is going on, but he’s still trying to shoulder his grace issues alone. It’s also nice that he wants Dean to stop and take a little breather to recover. I guess I can see why Cas wouldn’t want to bring Dean directly back into the center of his angel drama until he’s had two seconds to regroup. But still, it felt really forced. Maybe he felt having a woman outside waiting for him was the only excuse that Dean would understand– short of explaining everything he didn’t yet want to burden Dean with– for Cas picking up and running out right after Dean expressed his happiness that Cas was there?

Wow these assholes really need to sit down and be honest with each other. Neither of them is really cured, but Cas obviously thinks they are cured enough for now. I just really wish he hadn’t run right back out the door.

 

[supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural) [spn 10.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.03) [spn meta-ish](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta-ish) [I know this is about story structure and drama and the three act structure](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/I-know-this-is-about-story-structure-and-drama-and-the-three-act-structure) [and I know we are still building towards the lowest point of the arc](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-I-know-we-are-still-building-towards-the-lowest-point-of-the-arc) [but dammit I just wanna lock everyone in the bunker until they figure their shit out](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-dammit-I-just-wanna-lock-everyone-in-the-bunker-until-they-figure-their-shit-out) [this is not so much meta as me being whiny over my precious baboos](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-not-so-much-meta-as-me-being-whiny-over-my-precious-baboos) [i understand the story but just like any heartbreaking drama this has to break my heart and I have to cry about it somewhere](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-understand-the-story-but-just-like-any-heartbreaking-drama-this-has-to-break-my-heart-and-I-have-to-cry-about-it-somewhere) [please to be ignoring all of this thank you](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/please-to-be-ignoring-all-of-this-thank-you) [i don't even know where this is going it's basically a rambly ramble](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-don%27t-even-know-where-this-is-going-it%27s-basically-a-rambly-ramble) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	2. Chapter 2

May 29, 2016

78 notes

**Anonymous asked: I've been looking at destiel all wrong, i think, and that's why their scenes in the finale threw me so much. I couldn't really understand why they were acting so...well, brotherly towards each other. Why the romantic undertones we'd been seeing so heavily in subtext seemed to be almost missing now that they were actually interacting. But I think now that Dean and Cas (or at least Dean for sure) must not realize their feelings yet? I'd been working under the assumption that they do.**

Hi there!

Looking back at YEARS worth of this show, it’s often seemed that the destiel seemed to be happening more on one side than the other, and it’s shifted back and forth between Dean and Cas over the years.

In s7, for example, we had most of a season of Dean pining away after losing “the best friend he ever had,” according to Bobby, and then letting all those bottled up feelings come spewing out as anger in the fashion of an unrequited lover. He thought things were looking up when he found Cas in Purgatory, and then in 8.08, until we found out that Cas was being controlled by Naomi.

Cas  _breaking mind control_  for Dean seemed to be a turning point, but then he flew off again and abandoned Dean, leading again to that anger and hurt.

Gosh I feel like I’ve written all of this before somehow… [OH RIGHT I HAVE](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/143122835640/how-do-you-feel-about-destiel-in-s9-and-10-i)!

To condense almost 4k words in that post into a few sentences, they’ve NEVER been on the same page as far as feelings go. They’ve BOTH been manipulated by outside forces FOR THE ENTIRE DURATION OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP. Which is what makes 11.23 SO SIGNIFICANT.

Neither of them is being mind-controlled, neither is beholden to any outside force, Dean has made it explicitly clear to Cas that he’s part of their family (before they came up with the soul bomb plan!). Dean believed the world was ending at that point when he dragged Cas out for the pointless liquor store run. HIS ONLY OBJECTIVE WAS TO MAKE SURE CAS KNEW HOW MUCH HE MEANT TO DEAN. And then Sam’s phone call AGAIN INTERRUPTED THEIR CONVERSATION.

Since Andrew “I Love Paralleling Myself” Dabb wrote 8.08 where the Interrupting Moose thing really took off (yes, it was used in 8.07 when Linda showed up and cut their conversation short, but really, Dabb took the idea and RAN with it), I CAN’T IGNORE THE INTERRUPTING MOOSE THING in 11.23. The “Talk to me,” conversation that never got finished was CONTINUED in the Impala scene, where it was interrupted AGAIN.

I can’t even see them as bookends, except maybe for the reminder that the conversation in 8.08 was specifically about Cas feeling cut adrift and suicidal over his guilt, and the 11.23 conversation being a resolution and confirmation that Cas has an anchor, he has family, and he is not alone. That even if his efforts failed, he did EVERYTHING for the right reasons. Which is another parallel to past Dabb episodes (9.10 “less dumb, less ass,” 9.22, 10.10 “you’re not okay,” and DEAN asking Cas to end him if he goes dark again). It’s like this conversation has been slowly evolving over the last few seasons, and they’ve been circling closer and closer to working out all of their issues together.

These deliberately interrupted conversations are NOT CLOSED discussions, they’re just tabled for future reconsideration after a period of introspection and growth. And with Dabb in charge of where that introspection is leading, I expect more conversations like this in the future.

 

 

[spn 8.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.08) [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [spn 9.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.22) [spn 10.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.10) [this is an andrew dabb appreciation blog (except when it comes to car stuff)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-an-andrew-dabb-appreciation-blog-%28except-when-it-comes-to-car-stuff%29) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [i guess they needed to play one more round of Interrupting Moose](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-guess-they-needed-to-play-one-more-round-of-Interrupting-Moose) [spn s9](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s9) [spn s10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s10) [spn s11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11) [spn s12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	3. Chapter 3

Apr 20, 2016

41 notes

**Anonymous asked: How do you feel about destiel in s9 and 10? I personally think we got some of our best stuff from those two seasons, though admittedly i can see how ppl were disappointed especially coming off of s8. But i don't think they were trying to sweep it away/downplay it as much as they were stretching it out and focusing on other things as well. Pacing has always been our enemy when it comes to destiel, especially after a renewal. It's been disjointed at times, but always there.**

First of all, hi there. And let me apologize for how long it took me to answer this, but it’s a daunting question, and I wanted to give it the time and attention it deserves. :)

I started watching the show after prodding from friends during s8, and bingewatched the entire series probably three or four times before s9 premiered. I wasn’t really involved in the tumblr/online fandom at the time, other than occasionally perusing a few meta posts. This was back when I had actual ambitions to be a Serious Fiction Writer, and I was hesitant to turn this blog into a single fandom space (which I now kind of regret) so my posts from back then aren’t really tagged in any sort of organized fashion.

Anyway, point is, I regret my past choices, because I’d like to go back and reread some of my real-time reactions to s9 episodes, but I don’t have the kind of time it would take to unearth all those posts… So, Past Me has once again let Present Me down. No surprise there.

**AN: I decided what the heckeroo, I’ll show Past Me what for by writing this post entirely from my personal recollections of the last few seasons without referring to any supporting material. So this post is mostly my observations and what stands out to me most, without the benefit of even referring to the episode list, since you asked how I FEEL, this is a pretty raw account of my FEELINGS. Just in case, you know, I got things mixed up or out of order. This is about FEELINGS. With the disclaimer that my most recent rewatch of these seasons has occurred within the last month, so it’s not like I’m reaching back to distant memories of the long-past. :D

**AN2: Self-promotion Boogaloo: I mean, I kind of, in a roundabout meta-fic kind of way, really addressed most of this, at least as far as my personal feelings go, in 132k words worth of detail. I should probably just stand back and point at [Revenge of the Subtext](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fseries%2F327056&t=ZTc3OGE3Y2JhOTVkOWM5YWMzZjM5ODYwZGY2ODYwYWNkMDFmNTU4NCxsVnpnaTkwMQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F143122835640%2Fhow-do-you-feel-about-destiel-in-s9-and-10-i&m=1), but I’ll try and sum up in far fewer words here. :P

Under a cut because while it’s substantially shorter than 132k, it’s still kind long and rambly. :D

What I do recall about s8 and s9 was the overall impression that we were being told a story in three parts. There was a lot of speculation floating around about the “three season arc” that Carver had planned (which would’ve concluded at the end of s10). A lot of meta at the time was being written with that specific structure in mind, and when s11 was announced so early (in early February, if I recall, while s10 was still being written), it’s theorized that there was some scrambling to stretch out the main storylines and expand everything to accommodate the additional season. And that’s when a lot of fans/meta writers threw up their hands and left the show. (shouldn’t have eaten those hands…)

I, personally, haven’t seen a single instance in the last four seasons (8-11) where they’ve trashed destiel, or where I thought they were squashing the subtext out of existence. And I agree with you, that it’s a matter of pacing and drawing out all the major plot arcs from the last few seasons that have sometimes made it feel like a hopeless, endless journey leading nowhere. But also like you, I’ve seen multiple instances in s9 and s10 that only serve to strengthen the destiel reading. Hello 10.05, I’m looking at you Office-style, straight into the camera lens.

S8, with Purgatory, Dean’s praying every night, his absolute glee to have Cas back with him, and then his  _continued_  praying mid-season when Cas disappeared again… then Cas breaking through torture-induced  _mind control_  to “break the connection” by his refusal to kill Dean in the crypt… well, after a season of what seemed to be mostly one-sided destiel from Dean’s side, it seemed like a confirmation that the only thing that had been holding Cas back was the aforementioned mind control. I think we all puked rainbows at that point.

But then Cas flapped off again with the tablet, driven to protect it from everyone, including Dean. What Dean didn’t know, and what Naomi implied while talking with the secretary angel, was that  _the tablet itself was likely asserting its own agenda over Cas_. Naomi said that Cas was only doing what he was programmed to do (to keep the tablet safe) in running off with the tablet. So what looked to Dean like Cas not trusting him, like Cas abandoning him again, may actually have been just as much a form of mind control as Naomi had been using over him since the start of s8. Cue the ongoing misunderstandings.

Dean was hurt, and took that out on Cas for most of the rest of s8, flat out ignoring him that first time they brought Cas to the bunker after Crowley stole the tablet from him. For the first time all season, since Purgatory, Cas’s mind is his own again, and Dean’s too hurt, feels too betrayed  _again_ , that he’s not willing to let go of that hurt yet, so Cas is left feeling like he still needs to earn the forgiveness that Dean had been ready to give him back in Purgatory.

Poor Cas, though. He doesn’t get that HE doesn’t have to earn anything. That hurt’s all on Dean to work through. He just needed a little time. But then while Cas was out terrifying a store clerk into selling him some Apology Pie to bring to Dean, Cas is lured away by Metatron in a way highly reminiscent to how he was lured away by Crowley (while watching Dean rake leaves) in s6, with the promise of earning redemption for his past mistakes through a Grand Gesture. And once again, his heart was in the right place, but things Do Not Go Well for Cas.

What seems the most significant takeaway for me from s8 as a whole is the sacrifice of it all (pfft even the last episode is called Sacrifice, for crying out loud). Dean has finally forgiven Cas, just in time for Cas to ask for his help carrying out what he mistakenly believes are “Heaven Trials” similar to the Hell Trials Sam is completing. What strikes me most about this is SAM IS WORKING THROUGH THE LAST TRIAL WHEN DEAN DECIDES TO LEAVE WITH CAS.

Sam, who Dean’s been worried about for the entire back half of s8 because of the trials, is embarking on the final trial, AND DEAN LEAVES TO HELP CAS.*side note to the bitter Cas fan anons I’ve been getting lately, how much more proof do you need that Dean cares about Cas? I mean really.*

They have what Dean believes is their final conversation, because he thinks Cas has chosen loyalty to heaven over him, and he’ll never see him again. So Dean feels out the situation without trying to lay his own feelings down on Cas. He tiptoes painfully around that whole conversation, and never “burdens” Cas by even saying “I’ll miss you,” or putting any of his own feelings on Cas. *brb, setting self on fire* WHICH IS SO HEARTBREAKING, that whole bar scene kills me. But then they run into Naomi, who warns them that Metatron’s trying to deceive them. Cas is so angry at Naomi he refuses to accept that truth until he can question Metatron himself. Which ends up with Cas captured, his grace stolen, and Dean trying to stop Sam from killing himself (because Naomi also warned him about the caveat written into the Hell Trials).

*then all the bad things happen*

Cas is human, and Dean’s #1 priority is split between Saving Sam and Protecting Cas. Seeing as he’s incapable of doing either, he ends up failing at both. Sam’s body is now being held hostage by an angel who uses Sam’s life as a bargaining chip to keep Cas away (because the risk to Gadreel if Cas discovered who he really was was too great). Gadreel needed to not only keep Cas away, he needed to make sure that Dean didn’t sneakily go off and confess everything to Cas. CAN YOU SAY EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL? Gadreel knew that hurting Cas this way, making him think that Dean didn’t care about him, would cut off Dean’s access to Cas as a friend to whom he might confess his secret. Gadreel was controlling that entire situation, which led to EVEN MORE BAD THINGS.

*we don’t talk about 9.03* *other than Cas’s first word on resurrection was “Dean,” and Dean’s reply was “don’t do that again.”

So Dean’s being manipulated into isolation, and Cas now feels betrayed and rejected the same way Dean had felt for much of s8. He tries to establish himself as a human, learning how to be human, and trying to stay out of hunting-adjacent trouble. But when he spots a potential case, his first call is to Dean. And Dean’s so happy to hear from Cas at all that he LIES to Sam/Gadreel and bolts off to visit him.

*we don’t talk about 9.06 because it’s essentially ONE LONG FEELING with a magical fanfiction gap, lots of pink splatter, heartbreak, longing, and sads when Dean inevitably drives off alone at the end of the episode*

But then Cas is compelled to get back into the heaven drama, Gadreel AGAIN forces Dean to distance himself from Cas, and as a last resort Cas steals another angel’s grace and again Dean feels like Cas’s loyalty has shifted back to Heaven. And at that point, after “rejecting” Cas three times (Judas reference, anyone?), Dean legitimately feels like he deserves it.

But then things with Gadreel come to a head, he kills Kevin, and Dean finally confesses what he’s done, and Cas forgives him. NOT ONLY forgives him, but reaffirms that Dean did those awful things  _for the right reasons_ , meaning Cas understood how Dean had been feeling when he did those things, and validated them.

But I don’t think Cas really understands how much of Dean’s feelings had been directed toward HIM PERSONALLY. So when Dean walks away from Sam and Cas on that bridge, he admits he’s “poison.” He feels like everything he’d tried to fix only ended up far more broken. Kevin, Sam angry with him, Cas cast out and alone. All of it. Then we have a wonderful interlude of Sam and Cas BFF’s, which I thoroughly enjoy, and wish it hadn’t happened because of Dean reaching a personal low point.

Meanwhile, Dean turns to Crowley, much like Cas once turned to Crowley at a particularly low point in his life… And he takes on the Mark of Cain in order to maybe salvage one thing and get rid of an actual threat: Abaddon. All of a sudden the tables are turned from s8. Cas is himself again (albeit with stolen grace that’s slowly burning him alive), but Dean is slowly succumbing to an unnatural sort of mind control, further confirming to himself that he’s actually poison. Sam and Cas work together to help him, but other outside forces continue to conspire against them all (Metatron, the warring angel factions, Gadreel– until he sacrifices himself in a Grand Redemption Metaphor).

Metatron literally tells Cas to his face that he did everything, sacrificed everything, FOR ONE MAN. DEAN WINCHESTER. That… was pretty damn explicit. When the author stand-in character basically yells IT WAS ALL DESTIEL! in Cas’s face, you really are remiss for not accepting that at face value.

But poor Cas thinks Dean’s dead, and so does Sam, until Crowley shows up and hauls demon!Dean out of the bunker and off for their Summer of Love (ugh).

So we have Dean minus the burden of his emotions and humanity, while Cas is slowly letting his stolen grace consume him (in a fashion that looks an awful lot like  _pining away)_. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs all around.

But Sam and Cas together manage to bring Dean back from demonhood, even though he’s still feeling the effects of the Mark. Suddenly s10 becomes the Season of Saving Dean From Himself.

*do we even need to mention 10.05 again? No? Good.* *whispers 10.05 anyway* *destiel! it was all in the subtext!* *redirects readers back to the top and the link to Revenge of the Subtext…*

Dean’s working through the guilt and “embarrassment” (his word) of his time as a demon, and still doesn’t feel worthy of love from anyone. Not to mention Cas is still trying to make things up with Heaven, helping Hannah rebuild and round up “rogue angels” who just want to live on Earth. Kinda sad, considering Cas  _is_  one of those rogue angels.

Long story short, s10 ends up being one long heartbreaking DO IT FOR DEAN season. Dean openly admits that Cas is a person who loves him, while Cas says to Dean’s face that he is one of the people that Dean loves. Again, ugh.

*we don’t talk about 10.22* *we just cry about it a lot*

AND NOW we have s11 and we’re finally circling closer and closer to the s9 premiere opening song WHO DO YOU LOVE?! with the love… and love. AND IT’S ALL HANDS AND HEARTS AND GROSSNESS AND BLANKETS AND oops Cas said yes to Lucifer and NOW IT’S ALL WE MUST SAVE CAS and DARKNESS WHO? BUT CAS! WE MUST SAVE CAS! AND THE HAPPY PLACE IN HIS MIND IS THE BUNKER’S KITCHEN AND HE CALLED THE BUNKER “HOME” AND DEAN JUST WANTS HIM TO COME HOME

and I just want to kind of faint about it all.

 

 

[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [spn s8](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s8) [spn s9](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s9) [spn s10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s10) [spn s11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11) [jeremy carver: destiel shipper](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jeremy-carver%3A-destiel-shipper) [pffft that was a tag i already had so i guess that kind of sums things up?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/pffft-that-was-a-tag-i-already-had-so-i-guess-that-kind-of-sums-things-up%3F) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [Grand Unification via Love Theory](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Grand-Unification-via-Love-Theory) [this season's getting handsy](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-season%27s-getting-handsy) [home is where the heart is i guess](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/home-is-where-the-heart-is-i-guess) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	4. Chapter 4

[May 29, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/145118479485/i-just-scrolled-past-my-own-reply-in-this)

12 notes

I just scrolled past [my own reply in this post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/145105941395/ive-been-looking-at-destiel-all-wrong-i-think) after it was reblobbed again, and I reread it, and something just occurred to me.

All these interrupted Destiel conversations are like one long [Scheherezade ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FScheherazade&t=OGJkNDc5ZWY5MWM5NWU1NmVmOTEyYjA3NTQ2ODljYTE5NWZjZWM1YixkbkREUDlraw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F145118479485%2Fi-just-scrolled-past-my-own-reply-in-this&m=1)story stretched out throughout the narrative.

The threat of death is always kinda hovering over them, and they’ve always seemed to have left something on the table to pick up the story again later.

There’s just a hint of “I’ll likely kill you in the morning,” too, because I’ve always thought of the 1001 Nights in relation to the Princess Bride, as well. It’s a similar narrative device, used slightly differently in each case, but with the same inherently romantic flavor.

I need to spend some more time thinking about this, but I wanted to note it down here to remind myself about it again later. :D

  

 

[spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [i guess they needed to play one more round of interrupting moose](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-guess-they-needed-to-play-one-more-round-of-interrupting-moose) [i'm now thinking i should be tagging these something like](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27m-now-thinking-i-should-be-tagging-these-something-like) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [find the thing mittens](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/find-the-thing-mittens)


	5. Chapter 5

[May 30, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/145188191555/idk-if-i-read-this-parallel-here-or-on-another)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: Idk if I read this parallel here or on another blog (all of you guys are amazing and it's hard for me to catch up) but is there a gifset of Josie looking upset that Henry thinks of her as his sister and Cas looking upset that Deam thinks of him as his brother? Thanks :)**

OH MY GOSH I HAVEN’T SEEN THAT ONE! It must’ve been somewhere else, but I am happy to put it out there for anyone who’s making gifsets of parallels to find and do the magical thing y’all do.

[In 9.17](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D9.17_Mother%2527s_Little_Helper_%28transcript%29&t=ZDg1NjlkNmQ1MmNkNmM3MzlmN2FiZmEyMzRlYTg2MDQ5YzliNjZhNyxmVTlaQ1ZUVg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F145188191555%2Fidk-if-i-read-this-parallel-here-or-on-another&m=1) (which was directed by Misha, so I’m sure the parallel WAS NOT LOST ON HIM AT ALL when he acted this out in 11.23):

> JOSIE: Take me, not him.
> 
> MOTHER SUPERIOR: You’re joking.
> 
> JOSIE: I could be more useful to you. People underestimate a woman.
> 
> MOTHER SUPERIOR [considering JOSIE]: No. That’s not it. You love him. He loves you, too, you know. Like a sister.
> 
> JOSIE: Please… Spare him. Take me. You have my permission.
> 
> MOTHER SUPERIOR: You’ve been very entertaining, my dear. But I don’t need your permission. Abaddon takes what she wants. And right now, she wants everything.

There is a KEY difference here, though. And that’s the history and context through which Dean tells Cas he’s his brother, a part of their family, after being disowned by his original family and wrongfully believing that Dean and Sam only thought of him as useful, this is not an insignificant admission from Dean. Dean was telling him that he’s a part of their family unconditionally, no matter what he’s done or how he may or may not prove useful in the future. He’s their brother. No takebacksies.

Abaddon was using that line to deliberately hurt Josie. She knew how Josie felt and used it as a weapon against her.

And while Cas may have wished for more from Dean, I do think he was grateful for that. And if THAT DAMN PHONE HADN’T RUNG… I don’t think Dean was actually  _done_  talking yet….

Dean was using that same line to begin a  _healing_  process. And because the conversation was interrupted, I’m pretty damn sure Dabb intends to continue the discussion next season. To the point that I have only TWO tags so far for major recurring themes I expect to see in s12, and this fits into BOTH of them.

So obviously I don’t feel it’s a perfect parallel, but it likely did inform Misha’s acting choices there, since he was well aware of everything that happened in the episode he, himself, directed.

  

 

[spn 9.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.17) [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [oh dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-dean)[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My commentary on a reply from elizabethrobertajones (aka lizbobjones)

[Jun 9, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/145662830250/im-actually-happy-the-car-speech-didnt-solve)

108 notes

**Anonymous asked: I'm actually HAPPY the car speech didn't solve anything, because how could it? Cas hasn't worked out any of the issues that put him where he is now emotionally and mentally. Dean's intent might have been made clear, but he hasn't actually PROVED anything yet. Next season will give him the chance to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. I think Cas will have a hard time believing him for a while so Dean will have to show him, and the audience, Cas' importance as a person and family.**

[elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/145658082768/im-actually-happy-the-car-speech-didnt-solve):

> Yes! Exactly :D 
> 
> It’s a great foundation to prove Dean cares etc but I think that only really works on our side… For Cas, coming around to trust this intent after all he’s been through is much more of a journey, and the car scene pretty much was the  _start_  of it at least in terms of “use your words and say what you want” kind of stuff… I mean they’ve extended hospitality towards him before, but it’s always been so tenuous and fragile when big plot drama stuff breaks them up again and again… It must be so hard for Cas to know and trust that he’s wanted
> 
> So what you said is basically exactly my wish for season 12, including Cas openly doubting, maybe, just for the sake of having a story about it that might eventually make him feel more at home. :)

 

Yes. This^^^

It reminds me of late s8 tension between Dean and Cas, but with Cas now in Dean’s place of (rightfully or not) believing that Dean doesn’t (or wouldn’t) trust him. We’ve seen Dean driving himself bananas, losing sleep in his quest to find a way to save Cas, focusing all his attention on researching a way to find him and free him of Lucifer, but CAS hasn’t seen it.

And it’s not like they’ve had a real breather moment to discuss it all since Cas has only really been free again for  _a day_  since that all went down. And WHAT A DAY, right? It started out with the sun freaking imploding and God telling them he’s dying. What are they supposed to do with that? They all go into a state of shock (the drinking at the bunker while waiting for the end).

So Dean, thinking the end is really and truly upon them, gives the flimsiest of excuses to get Cas alone in the car for a bit. And this, for me, is where it becomes different from 8.23 and that bar scene. Back then, Dean thought Cas was leaving him forever. Now, in 11.23, Dean thinks  _everything_  is ending. The entire universe. They don’t know how much time they have left, but dammit he’s got some stuff to say. First and foremost is to make sure Cas knows he’s got a home, a family, and that he’s wanted, just for him. That he’s forgiven, and that Dean doesn’t want to make the same mistakes he did in the past, of putting Cas’s needs below the job and Sam. He grants Cas equal status, even if it’s one of the last things they’ll ever do. Because, hello, the universe is dying.

At that point, Dean didn’t think he, alone, was going to be put in a position to save everything at the cost of his own life. The soul bomb plan hadn’t been thought up yet. He and Cas thought EVERYBODY was gonna die.

It’s only after Sam’s call, asking them to come back to try one last plan (i.e. killing the Darkness as opposed to just trying to trap her again), that the Dean-As-Soul-Bomb plan is hatched.

After that, Dean and Cas don’t really get another chance to talk. Things happen pretty quickly. They get zapped to the asylum to collect souls, then Billie shows up and finishes filling up the bomb (i.e. Dean). Rowena arms it and tells Dean he has about an hour before he goes supernova.

It’s only at this point where the plot swings back around closer to the bar scene in 8.23, where Cas thinks that Dean’s going to die and he might never see him again. But just like in 8.23, things Don’t Go Exactly As Planned. Cas and Sam assume Dean’s bomb went off as planned and that he, Chuck, and Amara are all “dead.” When the exact opposite is true.

I’ve read several people complaining that Dean didn’t have to turn around at the point where Sam called, because Sam really didn’t have a plan, and that he’d used it as an excuse to get out of an uncomfortable conversation, but SAM DID HAVE SOMETHING. He had everyone at the bunker at least engaged in his new scheme to kill Amara rather than trap or banish her. It hadn’t been an option before, but now that God’s dying, the previously untenable option of killing her too becomes a real, viable option again. And Sam needed Dean and Cas there to back his play while demanding answers from how to do it from Chuck.

Basically EVERYTHING that Dean told Cas in the car, that he is family, that he is important, and that he’s wanted just for who he is, is proven in the next scene. Chuck suggests the amount of power needed to kill Amara (10,000 suns), and it’s Cas who suggests that souls may contain that much power (each containing the power of 100 suns). He would know… and this is his chance to redeem HIMSELF from his choices in s6 that led to his original downfall.

It’s definitely by no means the  _end_  of his emotional and mental recovery, but it’s absolutely a firm foundation for it to happen. It’s taken eight years for Cas to get to that rock bottom place he was in when he said yes to Lucifer. There’s no way for a two minute conversation to resolve all of that, even if it was the last-ditch, end of the world conversation.

How unsatisfying would it have been for Cas to just be miraculously okay again after a few words from Dean? No, I think Cas is going to feel the need to continue “redeeming himself,” as he said in 7.01, and that Dean is going to be set up to prove he meant what he said in 11.23.

The mere fact they took the time to show us their conversation, and gave it such an “unfinished” feel, has convinced me that it’s going to be addressed again.

  

 

[spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [spn 7.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.01) [spn 8.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.23) [spn 8.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.22) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-dean) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words)


	7. Chapter 7

[Jun 28, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/146634249450/chiwalker-winjennster-motherfucking-this)

745 notes

[](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/image/146634249450)  


[chiwalker](http://chiwalker.tumblr.com/post/146630386251):

> [winjennster](http://winjennster.tumblr.com/post/146625977779):
>
>> MOTHERFUCKING THIS
>> 
>> [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) and I were just talking about this last night!
> 
> Omg, yes. To me, this was one of the most significant scenes in the episode.  To be a brother, or like a brother, ranks Cas right up there with Sam, as one of the few people Dean finds it unacceptable to lose.  Family and brother means always and love, to Dean.

I’ve been meaning to do a complete s11 rewatch, because I have too many thoughts on this. (Mostly I just keep talking about doing it but dangit now that I’m done with my dcbb draft I really should get on it.)

Basically if you fold the entire season in half at the midpoint (11.12 is the center point of the season, which pivots around the entire notion of love and family), you end up having to look all the way back to 11.02 (and 11.01, but it’s almost has to be watched as a single episode smooshed together with 11.02) to understand just how FREAKING HUGE this was for Cas.

From [11.02](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D11.02_Form_and_Void_%28transcript%29&t=NjBjYWFhOWYzYWE1YzJjNDcyMmQxNTg1MTM5YWQ1Y2E3OTdhYmU4NCxNY3BGVjhLZQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F146634249450%2Fchiwalker-winjennster-motherfucking-this&m=1), the baseline for Cas’s entire arc this season, the entire conversation prompted by Cas getting a phone call from Dean while being tortured by angels:

> CASTIEL: Mercy, brother, please!  
> EFRAM: Brother? Ha! What are you?  
> CASTIEL: W-what? I’m an angel of the Lord.  
> EFRAM: That so? ‘Cause, near as I can tell, when you have to choose between heaven and the Winchesters …  
> JONAH: You choose them.  
> EFRAM: Every time. So, see, you’re not my brother. And if I had it my way, I’d take this blade, stick it in your heart … and call that a damn good day.

He then goes on to have EVERY OTHER SINGLE ANGEL HE MEETS, including Metatron, no longer even in possession of his grace after Cas took it from him, essentially telling Cas he has no family. He’s got nobody. He’s homeless and useless and worthless. To the point where he thinks the only thing he has to give is his vessel, so he says yes to Lucifer.

Cas has NO IDEA at this point what Sam and especially Dean have been through during the second half of the season trying to save him. He’s not even sure if he’s forgiven for trying to do the right thing and failing… again. He’s not sure Dean can even forgive him for that, and he’s certainly not sure he’s truly welcome back at the bunker. Sure, for the strategic purposes of trying to stop the world ending, or commiserating about the End of Everything as they believed it to be… I mean, they’ve even got Crowley and Rowena hanging around for lack of anything better to be doing. Cas knows Dean barely tolerates either of them unless they’re being useful, and I think at first that’s exactly the category Cas believes Dean’s got Cas himself filed under. But that’s not what Dean says in the car there.

Dean isn’t mad at him, and he makes that MORE than clear to Cas. Dean starts that talk off (after psyching himself up by getting tipsy on three beers! LIQUID COURAGE!) by making sure that Cas KNOWS not only that he’s forgiven, but that there’s nothing he needs to seek forgiveness for in the first place. That was Step 1 of the Dean Winchester confession.

Step 2 continues apace, confirming that Cas IS THEIR BROTHER. He’s not “like a brother,” he’s not “like family.” He’s not family-adjacent. In Dean Speak, “Brother” is more than “sibling.” Brother has been his #1 priority since he was 4 years old and Sam was dumped into his arms. Brother is sacred to Dean.

but then when he’s about to go for Step 3 RING RING RING HELLO INTERRUPTING MOOSE CALLING WITH END OF THE WORLD REMINDER BULLETIN!

They’ve JUST arrived at the store that sells Beer (and oddly Guns as well, how AMERICAN of them), and it just feels like Dean’s about to say something more (because we’ve been getting these conversational interruptions since what, s6? but on this specific level of FEELINGS since at least 8.07) but the universe had to interfere with them again.

I get the feeling that Dean may have been a little bit relieved. He’s got this HUGE tangle of weird feelings going on regarding Cas, which is entirely clear to US because we’ve watching his pining ass pine over the angel since forever, and even MILDRED pointed it out to him in 11.11. But Dean’s just arrived at the point where he’s ready to admit that he loves chick flicks to his brother after 11 years of denying it, and it only to the end of the world and his looming death to get the words out.

And then the world didn’t end, and the story goes on for another night. There’s a reason I’m tagging this conversation between Dean and Cas as “the scheherezade of supernatural.” If you’ve never read the 1001 Nights, just quickly read [the synopsis](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FOne_Thousand_and_One_Nights&t=NGE0ZmNjNjc1MWI3ZjY4MjcyMTgwN2MwZWY4ZjI3MDc4ZDI3ZGRkYixNY3BGVjhLZQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F146634249450%2Fchiwalker-winjennster-motherfucking-this&m=1) and you’ll understand completely.

This is literally how the show has been handling this conversation between Dean and Cas  _for years_.

And they’re not going to stop yet. S12 ahoy!

  

 

[spn 11.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.02) [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	8. Chapter 8

[Jun 30, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/146710613620/i-wouldnt-mind-sam-cas-interactions-if-it)

23 notes

**Anonymous asked: i wouldn't mind sam cas interactions if it wouldn't be at the expense of gaslighting destiel, this is about the show again keeping dean and cas from interact together and forcing other dynamics instead, it's been blatantly obvious since season 10, they're rewriting their history. s11 finale for cas and dean was a repeat of dean and jo, they rewrote their dynamic from potentially, very obvious, romantic to a sister-brother relationship**

Hi. Well, I’m sorry you feel that way. I’ve written extensively about how I see Dean and Cas’s relationship evolving over the years, and I think we just see this particular evolution differently.

For one, I don’t believe they’re “gaslighting” destiel. And yeah, it HAS been blatantly obvious since before S10 that they’re rewriting the entire history of the SPN universe, for Sam, for Dean, for Cas, all the way up the ladder to God himself. I, personally, have not seen ANY of this as them rewriting their dynamic from very obviously romantic to some sort of platonic brotherhood.

So the fact that I disagree with your basic premise makes it really hard for me to reply.

I didn’t see 11.23 as a repeat of Dean and Jo. In fact, the entire point of all this history-rewriting has been to show the characters that there is another way, a better way, that they don’t have to keep making the same mistakes they’ve made in the past.

S11 especially raised a lot of new questions. All three Winchesters (because I include Cas as a Winchester now– if Chuck thinks of him that way, then I can too) had hit their Rock Bottom moments. Dean’s a little farther along the path back now, and Sam still has a bit more to work through, but Cas has JUST emerged from his Worst Of The Worst and he’s got some HUGE questions for himself he needs to answer before they’ll make anything “obviously romantic” between him and ANYONE.

This has all been built into the s11 narrative as well, and Dabb has been a BIG part of building it. He was the one who STARTED the conversation between Dean and Cas that’s still going on to this day. Well, technically bucklemming started it in 8.07, but Dabb picked it up and absolutely RAN with it in 8.08.

I’m referring to those “interrupted” conversations that never seem to have a satisfying conclusion, which I’ve tagged “the scheherezade of supernatural.” This is NOT a storyline that Dabb is going to drop. He likes it too much.

He’s continued it in practically every episode he’s written with both Dean and Cas: 8.22, 9.10, 9.22, through Castiel’s talks with Hannah while Dean was still a demon in 10.02, 10.09 while Dean was still struggling with the Mark (OH MY GOD BURGER DATE ANYONE?!), in 10.17 while Dean was beginning to fall back into the Mark’s sway, 10.22 (ow my freaking heart), 11.02 (cas being tortured and told by his angel brothers that he’s not one of them because he always sides with the winchesters), 11.10 when Cas sacrifices himself and takes on Lucifer after the otherwise entirely pointless scene of Dean and Cas by the car), 11.15 where Dean begins his sleepless quest to save Cas and KEEP ON GRINDING (which is where a lot of folks are guessing that Dabb took over as showrunner… and KEEP GRINDING was also the title of the VFX department’s Shaving People Punting Things promo video released at that time, so we KNOW that’s supposed to be something we’re paying attention to, a phrase Dean applies to his search for Cas at the end of 11.15). Then we have 11.17… with no Cas but it’s ALL about Dean’s struggle to find him while overcoming the problems Sam’s been facing while trying to find a way to defeat the Darkness. It’s about life and death and choices and sacrifice, and went a long way toward teaching Dean the lesson that he’s worth more alive than dead. I wrote about it extensively after it aired, so I’ll just shut up right now about it.

Finally 11.23. That conversation in the car was just one more link in a LONG chain of unfinished conversations. That was BY NO MEANS the end of the story. If anything, it was the baseline stage-setting of the BEGINNING of a story. For the first time in YEARS, maybe for the first time EVER, Dean and Cas are both their own people, and that is huge.

Cas isn’t bound to his duty to heaven. He’s not possessed, mind controlled, reprogrammed,  _human_ , or anything else. He’s just himself with no obligation to anyone else outside the Winchesters.

Dean is free of the Mark. He’s not being manipulated by outside forces to start an apocalypse. He’s not in a circumstance where he has to save Sam from demons or angels or the trials or anything trying to possess or control either of them. I’m not terribly concerned that the MoL are going to mind-control either of them, you know? I’m not frightened of Toni Bevell’s little gun.

They’re all alive, not beholden to outside forces, and finally able to truly work together. Yes, they have issues to work out. This is Dramatic Television, and if there weren’t issues to work out it would be boring as fuckall to watch.

But their interpersonal issues are, for the first time in the history of the series, truly not limited by outside forces. They’re both 100% in possession of their own agency.

Why is that a bad thing?

I’ve already written bunches on why I think this is incredible and amazing and only promises good things, and I just can’t look at what we’ve been shown so far and see it any other way.

  

 

[this is an andrew dabb appreciation blog (except when it comes to car stuff)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-an-andrew-dabb-appreciation-blog-%28except-when-it-comes-to-car-stuff%29) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation)[for anyone truly concerned about this just check out my dabb tag there for TONS of other stuff on the subject](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/for-anyone-truly-concerned-about-this-just-check-out-my-dabb-tag-there-for-TONS-of-other-stuff-on-the-subject) [because i've already made this post before and i really have no interest in making it again](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-i%27ve-already-made-this-post-before-and-i-really-have-no-interest-in-making-it-again) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	9. Chapter 9

[Jun 30, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/146712801020/new-anon-i-love-sam-n-cas-and-them-having-a)

19 notes

**Anonymous asked: new anon I love sam n cas and them having a relationship isnt at the expense if deancas inherently but it could be via screentime, misha has less screentime and a lot of that is often away from the bros if the use the limited amout of cas/brothers interaction for samcas idk where deancas will stil fit in. others have already documented/counted how much their interaction as decreased from year to year**

Hi, yeah, and I’ve seen posts to that effect, too. For me, personally, though, I can’t let myself preemptively decide that this means only Terrible Things for the future of the show and then try to force myself to feel awful and grumpy for four whole months before the first episode even airs. I just… can’t think that way.

I don’t watch Supernatural deliberately trying to prove the opposite reading from the one I favor is the Real One True Reading. I watch because the way I read the show makes me happy. That’s it.

I have no interest in nitpicking the story structure and character arcs trying to find the AHA! YOU’RE RUINING THE DESTIEL! proof. I find it counterproductive and pointless for myself, personally.

I know loads of others watch for that very reason, but as long as I keep looking at the things that make me happy, the elements of the show I enjoy, and focusing on those things, I’m perfectly content.

I have no idea how much screen time Misha/Cas will have in s12. I have no idea how much of that will be spent with Sam, or Dean, or Sam and Dean together. I have no idea how s12 is going to tie all their storylines together, and I have no idea whether it’s going to deliberately keep any of them apart for big chunks of the season. Why would I just assume right now that they’re going to handle any of these issues in a way that would just make me upset? I don’t enjoy being upset about vague future potentialities.

I don’t think they’re going to push Sam and Cas interactions at us as a way to reduce Dean and Cas interactions. I’ll just be happy if it means MORE screen time for Misha, you know? And I think that’s something they’re really trying to do.

Jensen, Jared, and Misha (and even Mark, as the other “series regular” on the payroll) have all said that they’re thrilled to be working together, because it means a break from the ridiculously heavy shooting schedule required of a show with only two main stars, for all of them. It also makes for a more balanced show for us.

Maybe instead of having Misha/Cas running around with a bunch of rando demons and angels, he’ll be splitting his time more between Sam and Dean, and really that’s something we’ve ALL been asking for. At least, this is what I’m hoping to see, and really think the show is headed. Especially after Dean’s chat with Cas in the car in 11.23. He WANTS Cas around more, and Cas knows he’s got a family and a home now. I just can’t bring myself to see any of this as a bad thing.

  

 

[spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [putting the TEAM back in Team Free Will](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/putting-the-TEAM-back-in-Team-Free-Will) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	10. Chapter 10

[oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)

[Jul 11, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/147271264690/why-am-i-crying-thinking-about-808-oh-right-im)

5 notes

why am i crying thinking about 8.08? oh right i’m drunk. pffft

this is it though. this is this is the beginning of the story dabb is trying to tell in s12. Because he’s been telling it through every episode he’s written in a long time/

okay i got distracted and forgot i was making a post for like half an hour oops.

  

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [there was a pastry mishap](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/there-was-a-pastry-mishap) [which was](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-was) [which was the scene that reminded me that tumblr was a thing that existed and the fact i was halfway through main ga post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-was-the-scene-that-reminded-me-that-tumblr-was-a-thing-that-existed-and-the-fact-i-was-halfway-through-main-ga-post) [@drunk mittens blogs drunkely](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%40drunk-mittens-blogs-drunkely)

[Jul 18, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/147621458885/12-im-just-so-freaking-hyped-about-all-these)

31 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 I'm just so freaking hyped about all these destiel barriers being broken down! Cas choosing the Winchesters/Dean over heaven for good. Jimmy being confirmed gone. Groundbreaking, amazing progress in the brodependency department! Dean and Cas finally getting on a completely equal level emotionally in the finale, and getting on the same page!!! Now Dean just has to work through his remaining issues (you're being called off the bench, Mary!), and Cas of course is still a different species:P**

> 2/2 I mean that’s probably still oversimplifying it, i realize lol. Dean and Cas still need to really be able to place and name their feelings towards each other, what makes them different, etc, admit that they do in fact feel this way about the other and that it is love that they’re feeling. But I just love how they *continue* to conveniently get these barriers out of the way; and why? I gotta as myself when i feel down about destiel. its not stagnant, just slow. And deliberately romantic.

Hi there, and yeah. I know how you feel. It’s been agonizingly slow, but it’s still happening, it’s still there. It’s turning into a very tortoise-and-hare kind of situation. They could’ve rushed to the finish line without going through all these barriers along the way, but that would leave so many unaddressed loose threads between them. It may be slower than glaciers move, but the plotline is moving, and that gives me hope.

I don’t know if I’d say that they were quite on the same emotional level in the finale, even, but they took clear steps toward it, and have found a new steady baseline to build from. Now that Dean’s not dead (of course), that hanging thread of a conversation is going to become relevant very quickly again in s12.

On Cas’s side, Did you really mean it Dean? Am I still part of your family? Do I have a home here? Or was that just because the world was ending… and now you’re stuck with me, Heaven’s Screwup?

And for Dean, are you really gonna stick around this time? No secrets, no lies, no going behind our backs? Are we gonna trust each other? But you’re still an angel… and I’m just a recycled human who can’t believe he’s even still alive and didn’t get particulated and cast into space.

There’s still a few more barriers, but they’re definitely crumbling.

  

 

[anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous) [the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words)


	11. Chapter 11

[Jul 24, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/147910512215/regarding-the-infamous-brother-line-in-the)

11 notes

**Anonymous asked: Regarding the infamous "brother" line in the finale from Dean to Cas: can i ask what makes you so optimistic about it still? And believe that their relationship is still a romantic one? I want to believe and still do to an extent, but mine and many others' metas and thoughts about why dean called him brother just seems like a stretch to me. Doubts are just starting to creep in i guess. I'm just wondering if the writers really think that way or if i'm just twisting it to fit my denial lol:P**

Oh gosh. Hi! Um. Well, I’ve already sort of talked this into the ground. I mean, it feels that way, anyway. I just checked, and I don’t have a ridiculous number of posts in my “[the beer run](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the%20beer%20run)” tag, but I know I have made other posts about it that I likely forgot to tag properly because of who I am as a person… Sorry?

But in other news, I have 19 pages under my [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn%2011.23) tag, and hopefully I’ve caught all the beer run scene under there somewhere…

I’ve also been tagging the ongoing interrupted conversation between Cas and Dean as “[the Scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the%20scheherazade%20of%20supernatural)” because if you know the story of the 1001 Nights, this tag pretty much sums up how I feel they’ve been structuring their conversation going back to at least 8.07.

I don’t know what else to tell you. I have no idea what the writers are actually planning or thinking about how this entire premise for their continuously interrupted and blatantly unfinished conversation looks. I mean, the story of Scheherazade is inherently romantic. At every turn these classic romantic tropes are being paraded out by those writers. I mean, as a story, 1001 Nights is over a thousand years old. This is not a new idea in storytelling, you know?

I can’t say that the way I’m choosing to interpret the show is what the writers intend, but I CAN say that frankly, it doesn’t matter what the writers intend. This is how I personally choose to see it. Because this reading makes me happy.

This is how I enjoy the show most, you know? So I’m going to continue watching it this way. I can’t force anyone else to believe in the way I choose to interpret what I’m seeing. All I can do is keep explaining my own personal understanding. If that makes you happy too, then THAT IS SPLENDID! I’m just here because I enjoy it. :)

  

 

[spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [the beer run](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-beer-run) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [and whoops i just realized i have like three versions of that tag](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-whoops-i-just-realized-i-have-like-three-versions-of-that-tag) [because i keep mistyping it in ask replies...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-i-keep-mistyping-it-in-ask-replies...) [and it should actually be](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-it-should-actually-be) [*shakes fist at ancient queen for having a really hard to type name*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Ashakes-fist-at-ancient-queen-for-having-a-really-hard-to-type-name%2A) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)


	12. Chapter 12

[Sep 3, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149889660395/hello-wonderful-mittens-i-was-just-minding-my-own)

11 notes

**[keeperofcuriousthings](https://keeperofcuriousthings.tumblr.com/) asked: Hello wonderful Mittens! I was just minding my own business, doing a rewatch of S10, when I hit 10x11 "there's no place like home" with dark!Charlie. I was checking out the deleted scenes, and in the car with Sam, she tells him, that she didn't let her inner "Hyde" out to save Oz, but did it to save Dorothy, that "she became like a sister" to Charlie... It made me think about the whole Dean/Cas "you're our brother, Cas" scene. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, or if I'm seeing things...**

Well hello there! Considering how much I harped on 10.11 as being the key to understanding where s11 was going, you’d think I would’ve remembered that deleted scene. Because if I HAD remembered it, I would’ve been referring back to it REPEATEDLY since 11.23.

*pauses writing here to go watch the scene and reconsider all my life choices*

She was there for multiple years (oz time passes differently). She mentions hooking up with Ozma in the same breath she mentions riding a dragon and leading an army of flying monkeys. But then her whole face, her tone changes, her voice breaks when she talks about what she was willing to give up or do to save Dorothy, who was like a sister to her, a sister she never had.

That’s also when Sam said, “Sometimes you have to do the bad thing to do the good thing,” justifying to himself his later actions trying to save Dean. So yeah, in that respect, at the time, I think we really DID write off the conversation as being about “actual siblings.”

Charlie replies to that, “Doesn’t make it right, though. Does it?”

And that’s the whole scene.

*warning: completely irrelevant rambling*

Heh, but the thing kept playing while I was typing. There’s another outtake scene of Dean sitting in the parking lot at the Realtor’s office loitering there, working up the nerve to go in or whatever, and a cop comes along and questions why he’s sitting there suspiciously, asks if he has business there.

Dean replies, “Yeah, yeah. I’m uh, looking to buy a home… uh, a house.”

Then Dean gets out and the cop/security guard follows him to the building on a Segway. Sorry, that bit’s just funny to me. The look on Dean’s face while this dude’s following him! :D

This presumed authority figure that Dean doesn’t want to mess with makes him pretty uncomfortable and flustery over going into the realty office, he corrects himself from “home” to “house,” because he’s already got a home. He’s got the bunker and baby, but he’s also got his family there. Everyone he considers to be like family now that Charlie’s back from Oz. (and after having spent the previous two episodes with Cas).

*okay back to the original point– the beer run–*

Charlie’s talk with Sam is second-hand. She becomes obviously emotional recalling how Dorothy was “like a sister to her.” Compared to how she talked about “hooking up” with Ozma a few seconds earlier as if it were some sort of achievement or conquest, the way she spoke about Dorothy was strikingly different.

She said she didn’t let her inner Hyde out to save Oz. Nor did she do it for Ozma. She didn’t make that sacrifice for someone she’d obviously had enough feelings for to hook up with, someone who– because of the situation they were in, at war and essentially leading Ozma’s armies– she  _couldn’t possibly_  see as merely a tryst or a one night stand. She knew she’d have to continue working with Ozma, and that hooking up with her wouldn’t damage their underlying working relationship of Queen to her General, as it were.

We also don’t know anything more about just  _how_  differently time works in Oz. Charlie described all her escapades to Sam as having happened in “Just the first year.” It makes me wonder how many more years she spent there, and just how bad the war got from what sounded like a pretty triumphant first year, at least the way Charlie talked about it.

How long did Charlie and Dorothy spend fighting on the front lines together before Charlie had to make the choice to split herself in half in order to save Dorothy? These two women had formed a bond stronger than anything Charlie had ever known. Charlie, who’d previously joked that she had two siblings “Xbox and PS3.” Who knew Sam and Dean thought of her as a sister… but I don’t know if she would’ve made the same sacrifice for them, you know? There’s a sister and then there’s a  _sister_.

And sitting in that car, in the dark, hearing about what Dean had done taking on the MoC, Charlie was wary. She KNEW she was doing something that wasn’t right, and she did it anyway. S10 was the season of “I did what I had to do,” and that was Charlie’s.

Still, she knows that Dorothy is essentially lost to her now, locked away in Oz. Her language there seems to be a form of self-defense. She doesn’t talk about her relationship with Dorthy, other than to frame it for Sam as a sibling bond, because she KNOWS what Sam and Dean BOTH have done in the name of a sibling. Selling your soul, going to Hell, etc. She can use the word  _sister_  with Sam and she knows he’ll understand… sort of. But she looks and sounds pretty damn heartbroken. She used sister to convey this info to Sam, but it was also the safest way to describe what Dorothy meant to her without having to dredge up all of her raw feelings and lay them bare for examination.

And that sibling shorthand is very much the same as what Dean was saying to Cas in 11.23.

But hey, good news! Neither Cas nor Dean has been sealed away in Oz! Or heaven, or the Empty, or wherever! They’re both ALIVE! STILL HERE! And most importantly, the universe didn’t collapse! Unlike Charlie’s hopeless situation with Dorothy, where she knew they’d likely never see each other again, Cas and Dean DO have hope now. They don’t have to continue to awkwardly frame their feelings as “brothers” to keep from examining their feelings too closely now.

This is an ongoing story for Dean and Cas. Charlie’s Scheherazade might’ve been lost to her, but Dean and Cas are still telling their story. They’re still finding another way.

  

 

[spn 10.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.11) [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [the beer run](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-beer-run) [keeperofcuriousthings](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/keeperofcuriousthings) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [charlie bradbury defense league](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/charlie-bradbury-defense-league) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [here have my belated thoughts on the whole love... and love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/here-have-my-belated-thoughts-on-the-whole-love...-and-love) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words)


	13. Chapter 13

[Sep 9, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150174608625/so-i-was-watching-the)

115 notes

**[aria-lerendeair](https://aria-lerendeair.tumblr.com/) asked: So I was watching the Dean-protects-Cas-from-Mary-with-a-gun gif again and I looked at the gun a little more closely. There's been a lot of talk asking about why Dean is afraid of Cas getting shot and maybe the gun is the answer! The colt is gone (theoretically left back in time because I'm attempting continuity here), but it doesn't really stretch the imagination that the MoL might have had something similar. Maybe that could hurt/kill an angel? What do you think?**

Eh, I haven’t really thought much about it, because from what I’ve seen about that discussion it boils down to one of two things:

  1. destiel shippers going AWWW LOOKIT HE’S DEFENDING HIS BOYFRIEND! HOW ADORABLE BECAUSE CAS IS IMMUNE TO BULLETS BUT HE’S STILL FREAKED OUT BECAUSE REGARDLESS IT’S JUST RUDE TO SHOOT AT HIS BOYFRIEND (and I admit I find this explanation endlessly entertaining, I mean have you SEEN [this comic](http://castihalo.tumblr.com/post/150129133205/no-but-srsly-tho-why-does-dean-look-so-freaked-out)? FREAKING ADORABLE I TELL YOU!
  2. Bitter Cas Girls complaining about the destiel shippers getting THAT EXCITED about Dean “giving a damn” about Cas for once because it SHOULDN’T be such a rare occurrence for Dean to try to protect Cas. And yeah, I can see where they’re coming from, but damn, I can’t imagine being that salty over anything.



I’m assuming that the gun Mary is carrying is one from their regular arsenal, either from the trunk of the Impala or from Dean’s room. He probably opened up the trunk/his personal collection to her and told her to pick which weapon she wanted to carry. Because Dean hasn’t been unarmed in EONS, it’s second nature to him to at least have some kind of weapon, and he’d assume Mary would be the same way, having been trained as a hunter too.

She probably picked a gun she  _remembered_  using somewhere in the distant past (maybe one of Samuel’s? Who knows. It could be any old gun, really). I think Dean’s too smart to give her some sort of Magical Special Gun (if they even have such a thing anymore since the Colt disappeared, and really, if they DID have such a thing, how can they explain never having mentioned it or used it before? Because that would be idiotic). She’s clearly traumatized and out of sorts at the moment. Giving her a Magical Special Gun would be like handing a 6-year-old an Uzi, you know? Seriously overkill.

With all that in mind, I’ve been thinking about all the more mundane reasons he’d get so worked up in trying to stop Mary from shooting Cas with just a regular old gun:

  * It’s rude. I mean, you don’t just shoot at people like that in the library.
  * I mean, look at how we all feel about Toni Bevell for shooting Sam there. It’s just rude. You don’t shoot a man in his own home just for standing there.
  * There’s [one gifset going around](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150097037500/cloudatlascas-deanneedsahug-meeting-the-fam) (possibly more) comparing this scene to the scene in 4.07 where Sam first met Cas… and pulled a gun on him in a similar fashion only to have Dean barge in and talk him down. The scenes are eerily similar. It’s potentially a reminder of how different Sam and Mary’s first impressions of Castiel are from Dean’s (because Dean DID actually shoot him, multiple times, and then stabbed him in the chest, but now he knows better, etc.)



But from a logical perspective, I’ve been looking at this from MARY’S point of view here, and Dean’s reaction to her rather than to Cas. Because Dean knows Cas is capable, he can take care of himself, and that the bullet isn’t gonna hurt him.

If this is, in fact, the scene where Mary first meets Cas, she may have pinged him as NOT HUMAN, and been afraid. After all, they must know something bad went down in the library and would be on edge about danger. Dean would want to ensure MARY that she’s safe, that Cas is a friend and won’t hurt her. It could simply be a reaction because Dean’s concerned about MARY’S comfort, because I can guarantee she’s still gonna be in a state of shock over being resurrected 33 years after she died and discovered her sons have grown up to be hunters… not even counting the culture shock aspects including cell phones, computers, and discovering her boys are Legacy Men of Letters with a secret bunker home base where their most recent house guests have included the King of Hell, Billie the Reaper (who I still think of as Death but call her Billie for clarity’s sake), Lucifer, and God himself, who made them pancakes. So… yeah. Mary’s gonna be overwhelmed, but if Dean has a way to make her feel more reassured and comfortable, he’s gonna try that.

Not to mention, if this really is the first scene where they’re reunited, THIS WOULD MARK THE FIRST TIME THAT CAS HAS SEEN DEAN SINCE THINKING THAT DEAN HAD DIED. CAS HIMSELF COULD VERY WELL BE IN A STATE OF SHOCK. And Dean might not be sure of how CAS is going to react to suddenly seeing a Very Much Alive Dean, not to mention a Very Much Alive Mary. He does have angel powers, and if he’s not sure of the authenticity of the people he’s looking at, he could perceive them as a threat and react accordingly. That… would be bad. (I mean, I don’t subscribe to this theory, but it is a theory that could potentially fit the out-of-context 2 second clip, so I figured I’d throw it out for dissection along with all the rest).

But I’m also very seriously entertaining the possibility that this ISN’T the first time she’s met Cas, only the first time she saw him use his mojo…

Maybe he booped his coat clean. Maybe he said something that implied he’s not human. Maybe maybe maybe… Eh, there are possibilities.

But in her current state, of course her first reaction to  _otherness_  is gonna be self-defense.

And right now I’m sad I just used my “this conversation does not require a weapons discharge” gif…

Fuck it, I’m using it again.

Of course Dean is going to prevent people from shooting at Cas. It doesn’t matter to him that bullets won’t hurt him. He’s behaved the exact same way toward Cas for YEARS. It’s not a new reaction.

It was dropped on our heads like an anvil in 11.18 that Dean thinks of Cas not as an angel in a random vessel, but he sees the whole package as Cas. And then in 11.23 we learned that Cas sees himself the same way when he called it “my body.” And that doesn’t change anything for Dean, because again, he’s seen the whole package as Cas  _for years._  And even if he knows intellectually that bullets aren’t gonna hurt him, Dean is going to react to Cas the same way he would react to Mary pointing a gun at any human friend, you know? Because  _he sees Cas as a person first_.

And I think this is an awesome way to reinforce that subtle distinction, yet again. Because the fact that the show continues to make that a plot point, not only in the s12 premiere episode but IN THE PROMOTIONAL TRAILER THINGY where they HIGHLIGHTED THE MAJOR EARLY SEASON PLOTLINES, means they don’t intend to drop that storyline anytime soon.

So, yay!

  

 

[aria-lerendeair](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/aria-lerendeair) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [spn 12.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.01) [oh dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-dean) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [because all of this ties back into the larger](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-all-of-this-ties-back-into-the-larger) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[storyline in a way and also into cas's journey of self-discovery and free will and finally answering the questions he's been asked about](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/storyline-in-a-way-and-also-into-cas%27s-journey-of-self-discovery-and-free-will-and-finally-answering-the-questions-he%27s-been-asked-about) [himself for ages now and i'm 100% behind him coming to an understanding of his inherent worth](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/himself-for-ages-now-and-i%27m-100%25-behind-him-coming-to-an-understanding-of-his-inherent-worth) [and not because he's useful or expendable or whatever but because he is inherently valuable to dean regardless of any of that](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-not-because-he%27s-useful-or-expendable-or-whatever-but-because-he-is-inherently-valuable-to-dean-regardless-of-any-of-that) [just for being himself and even if he just stood there looking adorable and confused for the rest of time if that made him happy](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/just-for-being-himself-and-even-if-he-just-stood-there-looking-adorable-and-confused-for-the-rest-of-time-if-that-made-him-happy) [okay sorry that's my version of bitter cas girl syndrome and it's not as bitter as some because i can see canon actively dealing with it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/okay-sorry-that%27s-my-version-of-bitter-cas-girl-syndrome-and-it%27s-not-as-bitter-as-some-because-i-can-see-canon-actively-dealing-with-it) [so i have less to be bitter about so i'm probably better described as a cas cheerleader or something like that because i think he is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/so-i-have-less-to-be-bitter-about-so-i%27m-probably-better-described-as-a-cas-cheerleader-or-something-like-that-because-i-think-he-is) [getting that story in canon right now (but i was a horribly bitter cas girl back in s10 when canon was treating him like garbage so...)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/getting-that-story-in-canon-right-now-%28but-i-was-a-horribly-bitter-cas-girl-back-in-s10-when-canon-was-treating-him-like-garbage-so...%29) [what were we talking about again? oh right sorry...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/what-were-we-talking-about-again%3F-oh-right-sorry...)


	14. Chapter 14

Sep 15, 2016

962 notes

  
[](https://66.media.tumblr.com/19509171dde6180c8ff9e4515f87b27c/tumblr_oc48kd3gs51qf8cgzo1_250.gif)   
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[](https://66.media.tumblr.com/1ec7a5c2a733e2586558fe793eec1bc6/tumblr_oc48kd3gs51qf8cgzo7_250.gif)   
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[cloudatlascas](http://cloudatlascas.tumblr.com/post/150443568039):

> I know this was meant to show how far gone Dean was getting but tbh I think he has a justification! Not only were they going to rape Claire but they tried to kill Dean!

Yeah, and there was more than that going on here, too. Not only had Dean had a very similar dream to that scenario he woke up to in Randy’s living room, he’d also been having unsettling flashbacks to the dream throughout the episode (even in the midst of his ‘burger date’ with Cas). He’d also just been recounting an event from his own childhood where he’d been manipulated by adults (or at least older, more experienced people) into a pretty scary situation (the CBGB incident). He walked into that house primed for  _something_.

On the other side of the equation, yeah Claire was in danger, but she did fight her way free of the guy. What Claire and Dean BOTH didn’t know was that the guy wasn’t just going to rape her. Randy had essentially  _sold her_  to the guy to pay his debts. HE SOLD HER.

So we know that Claire still has this misplaced loyalty to Randy and she holds that tight, as a reason to hate Dean and to continue being angry toward Cas.

But really, to US, it looked like Dean was pretty damn well justified in killing those guys, because EW.

But Dean, Cas, Claire, and Sam had no idea of the depths Randy had really sunk to. And that made Dean’s actions seem more like overkill. Not to mention Dean “waking up” after the slaughter to a scene nearly identical to his nightmare, and wondering if he has any control over his actions at all…

Source: [demondetoxmanual](http://demondetoxmanual.tumblr.com/post/149137149205)

Reblogged from [cloudatlascas](http://cloudatlascas.tumblr.com/post/150443568039/i-know-this-was-meant-to-show-how-far-gone-dean)

  

 

[spn 10.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.09) [rape mention](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/rape-mention) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [subverting the mark of cain](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/subverting-the-mark-of-cain) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [claire novak](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/claire-novak)[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [no really WE know that randy was trash and can call dean's actions justified.](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/no-really-WE-know-that-randy-was-trash-and-can-call-dean%27s-actions-justified.) [the guy was literally about to sell her to cover a $5k debt to his bookie](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-guy-was-literally-about-to-sell-her-to-cover-a-%245k-debt-to-his-bookie) [but sam? cas? claire? they were just scared by DEAN's violent reaction](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-sam%3F-cas%3F-claire%3F-they-were-just-scared-by-DEAN%27s-violent-reaction)[wow it's all a matter of perception and that episode looked different from each character's POV](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wow-it%27s-all-a-matter-of-perception-and-that-episode-looked-different-from-each-character%27s-POV) [the more i think about how that notion was set up just from dean's different behaviors toward sam and cas](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-more-i-think-about-how-that-notion-was-set-up-just-from-dean%27s-different-behaviors-toward-sam-and-cas) [in the opening scene in the bunker and clearly lying to sam versus the openness of the burger date conversation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/in-the-opening-scene-in-the-bunker-and-clearly-lying-to-sam-versus-the-openness-of-the-burger-date-conversation) [each character saw something different happening and still didn't have the entire story of what was really going on](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/each-character-saw-something-different-happening-and-still-didn%27t-have-the-entire-story-of-what-was-really-going-on) [wow okay dabb i see what you did there](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wow-okay-dabb-i-see-what-you-did-there)


	15. Chapter 15

Sep 17, 2016

163 notes

**Anonymous asked: i'm tired of cas stans & their double standards, claiming dean is abusive to cas mainly based off on dean beating up cas in s10, forgetting that dean wasn't himself he was controlled by the MoC, like cas wasn't himself all the times he beat up dean when he was mind-controlled, how is dean held accountable for things he can't control while they don't do the same when it's cas, it's frustrating, please i need some thoughts/proof that dean cares 4 cas & not abusive from some1 articulate, can you?**

Hi there. Yeah, I think most of the bitterest Cas girls blocked me last year because I was overly-excited about what I saw as the beginning of an amazing arc for Cas’s character development, so I admit I don’t really see a lot of their posts anymore. I don’t know what the current rhetoric is on that front, but it’s kind of disturbing to read your description there. I don’t really know what the heck to make of that.

Sam, Dean, and Cas have each made their fair share of terrible, awful decisions. They’ve collectively done some horrible shit to each other. Since we’re specifically talking about Cas and Dean for the purposes of your question, I guess I’ll try to leave Sam out of this and just focus on the crap that Dean and Cas have done to each other, both in the name of the greater good and in the misguided attempt to “protect” each other, as well as those things that fall into the category of “done while mindfucked so probably is entitled to at least a little leeway and not 100% responsible for the fuckery.”

*flashback harp noises and rippling effect*

S4 Cas demanded that Dean torture Alistair for info. Granted it was a trap for both of them set by Uriel, and they both nearly died because of it, but still. It was one of the worst things I have ever seen. Dean practically begging not to, and even Cas saying if there was any other way he wouldn’t be doing this, but… yeah. Ugh. I mean, even making Dean choose to save that town in 4.07 was pretty awful, especially when Dean learned the truth about Cas’s test.

But IT LED TO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! CAS GREW A FEELING! ANOTHER DOORWAY TO DOUBT! It began to change him in all the best ways. And every time Cas and Dean have purposely or inadvertently hurt each other, it’s been a push to do something different. It’s character growth.

And ugh, I can already hear the chorus of  _but why do they have to beat each other for character development! That’s SOOOOO not healthy! It’s abuse! UGH!_

This is a story. These are plot devices. They are not real people.This is not real life. In real life, we don’t have literal angels and demons trying to start the apocalypse, and men who were born to be the true vessels of Michael and Lucifer who were fated to destroy the world, either. Okay, moving on to your actual question.

I guess I should just focus on s8-11 here, because this is getting more specifically to the point. Because of the crushing weight of his guilt, Cas left Dean– a squishy nougat-filled human– to fend for himself in Purgatory. It was the least he felt he could do to protect Dean from the Leviathan. When Dean got out, Cas chose to stay behind. It pushed every abandonment issue button Dean had.

When Cas came back, he was  _unknowingly being controlled by Naomi who’d trained him to kill thousands of copies of Dean_. Was he responsible for his actions in the crypt in 8.17? He broke free of Naomi’s control and healed Dean, but protecting the Angel Tablet was hardwired into him. Instead of staying with Dean, he flew away to protect the tablet. I’m not convinced that he had any other choice. The tablet was now controlling him, demanding his protection above everything else, even his feelings for Dean. Even though Dean still was technically in danger from Crowley and Naomi.

Do we blame Cas for that? I mean, Dean sort of did at the time. He cold-shouldered Cas until he came to a sort-of understanding about Naomi. Until he got a glimpse of the bigger picture. And then Cas abandoned him again, and then the angels fell.

So, Dean was in an impossible situation largely of his own making but spiraled so far out of his control that it’s literally sickening. Based on Cas’s word that “Ezekiel” was a good angel that could be trusted, Dean trusted Gadreel… and then paid the price for it. Desperate times and all that… (and because of the nature of your question, I’m leaving out all the crap with Sam at the moment because that’s a whole other can of worms).

So this angel’s essentially holding Sam hostage and making demands on Dean. He’s got the equivalent of a gun to Sam’s head when he tells Dean that Cas can’t stay at the bunker. Yeah, as far as we know Dean just pushed Cas out the front door without a damn thing, but really? You don’t think he at least gave Cas a bag of gear and a couple of fake credit cards or a wad of cash? Okay. And yeah, I HATE that that whole scenario happened at all, but again, Cas was human and the only angel Dean had to help him keep Sam alive was making this demand on him. DEAN hated it, too, but at least Cas had a chance of survival out on his own. Without “Zeke,” Sam was as good as dead. No takebacksies. It wasn’t Dean “choosing Sam over Cas.” Considering his options, he chose life. Sending Cas away wasn’t issuing him a death sentence, after all.

And yes, that’s what I imagine was going through Dean’s mind at the time. I didn’t say it was  _good_  or  _healthy_  or  _right_ , just honest and hella heartbreaking.

Do we blame Dean for this? Really? REALLY?!

I saw something once that said that Cas hadn’t really been responsible for hurting Dean in the crypt because he didn’t  _choose_  to be mind-controlled, but that Dean could be blamed for all the crap he did because he chose to let Gadreel into Sam, and he chose to take on the Mark of Cain. Well, yeah, but do you think he would’ve chosen if he had a crystal ball and could’ve seen into his own future? Do you think he would’ve chosen either of those things if he’d known what the consequences would be? Possibly, but THEN I would’ve blamed him for all of that. As things stand? Yeah, Dean had no idea what he was signing up for.

So that brings us to the horrible things Dean did under the influence of the Mark. Yeah, we know it amplified his own darker tendencies, but it was FAR more than that. It was literally the keyhole into Amara’s prison where she could whisper through the cracks and control Dean’s actions.

Look at 10.09 (and [I JUST wrote something about this the other day](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150449434395/cloudatlascas-i-know-this-was-meant-to-show-how)). That was all the proof I needed that the Mark didn’t just amplify Dean’s “dark side.” It actively controlled him. He didn’t even  _remember_  what he’d done. Even Crowley told him that the mark had to be fed, and if he hadn’t been supplying regular feedings, it would’ve taken control and driven Dean to lose control. It was the mega-intense non-fatal version of the Darkness sickness from 11.01 (and from 11.20). He was literally being controlled by the Darkness.

The fact that Chuck said in 11.22 that Dean couldn’t take on the Mark again so it had to be someone else (and I cringed through that whole scene because it was just one more instance of Chuck avoiding taking responsibility for what eventually happened in 11.23, of reuniting HIMSELF with the Darkness, as it always should’ve been). Dean was somehow  _immune_  to it at that point. Amara couldn’t kill him, she couldn’t “eat his soul,” she couldn’t infect him with her death fog.

So, was Dean responsible for the actions that the Darkness drove him to commit? Sam wouldn’t think so. I mean look how hard he worked to cure the zompires in 11.01. He didn’t blame them for their actions while they were infected. He just wanted to save them. Same thing goes for Dean with the Mark.

Yes, what he did to Cas was terrible, but remember Cain’s words in 10.14. Dean had been “fated” to murder Cas, and he resisted. The combined weight of Cain’s prophecy and the influence of the Darkness, and DEAN RESISTED. He couldn’t do it. So, yeah. That’s pretty damn powerful.

CAS UNDERSTOOD ALL OF THAT. Cas forgave Dean, and probably blamed himself for not beng able to break through to Dean despite having not fought back. Despite probably remembering what he’d done to Dean all the way back in 8.17. Despite wanting nothing more than to make his friend whole again.

And then at the beginning of s11 when Cas was under Rowena’s attack dog spell. Yeah he seemed to have a bit more control over himself than her other victims of that spell (hooray angel grace, I guess?), but he was still fighting a losing battle against it. Dean, still feeling the pain and guilt of what he’d done to Cas in 10.22, took the beating Cas gave him as retribution for his actions against Cas.

Do we blame Cas for that? Do we blame him for hurting Dean? He’d been about to take his wrath out on an innocent girl before Dean stepped in and stopped him. Do we blame Cas for that?

Their actions weren’t their own. The two things were being used as NARRATIVE PARALLELS to show that both Dean and Cas WERE NOT THEMSELVES. Neither of them would’ve chosen to act that way. Neither of them were in control of their actions or in possession of reason.

Does that somehow cancel out their actions and clean the slate? Not by a long shot. Does that make their actions forgivable? Probably not entirely. Does that help EACH OF THEM UNDERSTAND WHAT THE OTHER WAS GOING THROUGH AND MAYBE CONTRIBUTE TO WHY THE CHARACTERS THEMSELVES BEAR NO GRUDGES AGAINST ONE ANOTHER?! Well, yeah.

So why should we bear grudges against either of them?

Dammit, they live some pretty fucked up lives. But again, they are fictional characters. We only get to see about 17 hours of their lives out of an entire year. Should we assume they’ve had conversations that we’re not privy to? Probably. Should we assume they’ve apologized to one another off screen and that’s why they seem to have gotten over this? It’s likely that we’re to assume  _something_  of the sort, because Dean and Cas themselves are behaving as if they have gotten over these things.

Are we ever going to be shown A Very Special Supernatural Group Therapy Episode, oh god no I hope not.

When the characters on tv shows seem to have put their issues behind them, it’s okay to accept that they’ve forgiven each other and move on. And then write fanfic to fill the gap.

  

 

[the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [spn 11.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.22) [spn 10.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.22) [spn 11.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.20) [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23)[spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [spn 11.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.01) [spn 11.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.03) [spn 4.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.16) [spn 4.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.07) [probably more but eh too many to tag](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/probably-more-but-eh-too-many-to-tag) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	16. Chapter 16

[Sep 17, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150562051940/i-answered-an-ask-the-other-day-about-cas-and)

31 notes

I answered[ an ask ](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150522376325/im-tired-of-cas-stans-their-double-standards)the other day about Cas and Dean, and the relative amount of blame they shoulder for the terrible things they do to each other. Well, in rewatching 11.03, I’d like to express a few more thoughts on this subject.

Dean and Sam know what the spell Cas is under can do to people. A woman under the same spell was Sam and Dean’s introduction to Rowena in 10.07. That woman nearly took Sam out single handed. Sam had to lock her in a closet and barricade the door with his body in order to stop her. Until she burned herself out and dropped dead from the effects of the spell a few minutes later.

And now CAS is under this same spell. Cas has succumbed to its influence over him several times, and is still fighting it off DAYS after he was cursed. I’m sure he gave Sam and Dean the same warning he’d given the angels– TWO ANGELS. Beings that were stronger, faster, and far more powerful than the Winchesters. Beings that CAS FOUGHT AND KILLED in a fit of spell-enhanced rage.

Sam and Dean did chain him to the floor, but they didn’t lock him away. They kept him close; both so they could keep an eye on him and make sure he was okay and so he could participate in their discussion.

Let me backtrack just a second… this is also after Cas’s primary concern in 11.01 was DEAN’S well being. And after Cas went to the bunker in hopes that Sam and Dean could help him after his angel family basically rejected him once and for all. Cas hadn’t gone to them for help first because if Cas had a choice, he wouldn’t have endangered Sam and Dean. That’s not the mindset or the actions of someone who bears a grudge for the treatment he’d received in 10.22. He doesn’t blame Dean for any of that, and is simply relieved that Dean’s been cured/saved. He doesn’t expect an apology from Dean, because CAS DOES NOT BLAME DEAN. That would be like Dean blaming Cas for killing all those copies of him, or for what Cas did to him in the crypt.

And as Cas just said in 11.03 after having an upsurge of the spell that caused him to black out…

> Castiel: I blacked out for a lot of it. But I… I don’t know. It overwhelmed me. I-I couldn’t control it.

And that’s it. He can’t control it, any more than Dean could control what the Mark made him do. Dean and Cas both are a little overwhelmed by the fact that Dean didn’t finish what he’d started, and the only reason Cas stopped his attack on Dean in 11.03? Because Rowena lifted the curse.

Of course they don’t blame one another. They each blame themselves for not being able to stop. For not being able to control the uncontrollable.

  

 

[spn 11.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.03) [spn hellatus rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-hellatus-rewatch) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [this is still bugging me because i know everyone was waiting for that big apology scene but really? I think they're good with each other](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-still-bugging-me-because-i-know-everyone-was-waiting-for-that-big-apology-scene-but-really%3F-I-think-they%27re-good-with-each-other) [at least as far as that stuff goes and only time will tell how their ongoing conversation will continue](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/at-least-as-far-as-that-stuff-goes-and-only-time-will-tell-how-their-ongoing-conversation-will-continue) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	17. Chapter 17

 [Sep 25, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150940602130/i-feel-like-making-chuck-bi-just-means-we-are-not)

21 notes

**Anonymous asked: I feel like making Chuck bi just means we are not getting textually bi Dean. They're not afraid to make a character bi so if Dean is bi why don't they just say so? I was honestly so disappointed when that came out.**

Well, I assume this was prompted by the other post I posted? This one:  <http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150937907685/yeah-casually-making-god-canon-bisexual-really>

In which we compared all the ways that Chuck was specifically emulating Dean, and every new character detail we learned about Chuck  _also seemed to apply to Dean_. Some of these things were completely clear and obvious, like the robe and watching all of Dean’s porn on Dean’s laptop. Some of these are subtler, like the bacon comment and the music and shower stuff. But because of this  _pattern_  of comparisons between the two, at what point are we to say, Well, they obviously mean  _those things_ apply to both characters, but  _they can’t possibly mean that THAT thing does_.

It’s creating an arbitrary cutoff point for all these references, beyond which the comparison is supposed to end. And I can’t come up with a single reason the line should be drawn at “Chuck confirmed in canon that he is bisexual and has dated both men and women,” so therefore Dean can’t possibly be bisexual.

This show has done  _everything_  in baby steps. Especially when it comes to Dean, his sexuality, and his relationship with Castiel. It took  _eleven years_  for Dean to admit he loves chick flicks. It took a span of 26 episodes (between 10.16 and 11.19) for Dean to go from admitting he’d like to experience something more with someone  _out loud and outside the sanctity of the confessional, and most importantly IN FRONT OF SAMMY._ And that was specifically in reference to a gay married couple.

So no, identifying Chuck as bisexual, if anything, is just one more step forward. This progression is by no means over. Considering the way Dean was raised, the way he prefers to deal with his emotions (with whiskey and denial), and how little he’s tended to think of himself over the years, it’s amazing he’s come as far as he has in the last few seasons. This hasn’t been an easy thing for him, and he’s not just gonna come out and say it, drape himself in a bi pride flag and suddenly just miraculously be fine. He’s on a soul-searching journey, redefining his relationship with his brother, redefining his relationship with Cas, and now getting to establish a real relationship with his mother for the first time in his life. I’d rather not see this journey belittled by having him deliver the same sort of carefree coming out speech that Chuck did. THAT’S where I’d draw the line at where the parallels between them ended.

[spn s11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [dean winchester is bilingual](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-winchester-is-bilingual) [if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you-say-%27mysterious-ways%27-so-help-me-i-will-kick-your-ass) [spn s12 wishlist](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-wishlist) [insofar as i'd like this progress for dean to continue in this general direction](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/insofar-as-i%27d-like-this-progress-for-dean-to-continue-in-this-general-direction) [also tagging this for relevant reasons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/also-tagging-this-for-relevant-reasons) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [because the conversation is longstanding and ongoing](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-the-conversation-is-longstanding-and-ongoing) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	18. Chapter 18

[Oct 25, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152309268305/with-only-2-episodes-in-the-new-season-so-far-how)

9 notes

**Anonymous asked: with only 2 episodes in the new season, so far how do you see the chances of destiel, better or worst than last season? it makes me nervous to have a new showrunner because you can never know if they will make major changes, take things on a completely different route, tbh I didn't know what to think after the infamous car conversation in 11x23, whether or not it was maybe to definitely shut down the possibility of romantic canon destiel, what vibes do u get of their interactions in the new eps**

Oh gosh hi. I think we all talked this into the ground all through the hellatus. Many posts were made pointing to Andrew Dabb’s loooooooong history of writing us some pretty destiel-heavy stuff, and his obvious love of Cas as a character.

And I still think they’re playing the longest of all possible games with it. This is a marathon, not a sprint. They’ve been giving us 1001 Nights, and we’ve still got  a ways to go.

I’d been tagging this narrative “the scheherazade of supernatural” but since it’s REALLY hard to type “scheherazade” I’ve got like 6 tags all mucked up over it, but for further reading on the subject it’s still a good place to start.

As far as the new episodes: Dean and Cas are being open about their feelings, using words to talk to one another, and having entire conversations with just a few looks. They’re obvs married.

 

 

[the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [watch that's probably the 7th different tag i've inadvertently created](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/watch-that%27s-probably-the-7th-different-tag-i%27ve-inadvertently-created) [all because i have to keep typing 'scheherazade' and can never remember how i did it before >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/all-because-i-have-to-keep-typing-%27scheherazade%27-and-can-never-remember-how-i-did-it-before-%3E.%3E) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	19. Chapter 19

[Oct 27, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152401450690/i-just-need-closure-on-mildreds-lines-from-11x11)

11 notes

**Anonymous asked: i just need closure on mildred's lines from 11x11. i need to know what all this was for. every week i die a little because i feel like they're slowly chipping away at dean and cas' relationship so that it fits but im probably wrong :( considering other arcs, do you think this will be addressed this season? i know you can't predict it but based off of stories that have already finished in the show do you have any thoughts... sorry if this is confusing**

Hi there! And I’m sorry you’re feeling sad about it, because I’ve been feeling very positive all around.

We’ve got several different very long-term storylines all wrapped together, and all of them slowly converging on the same location. But since you’re specifically concerned with Dean’s side of the story, I’ll start with Castiel’s… >.>

He’s repeatedly been asked who he is, what he is, and where his loyalties lie. He’s been told point blank that the other angels no longer see him as one of them. He’s no longer their brother. But he’s also JUST been told he’s a Winchester, he’s family, and he now thinks of the bunker as “home.”

But there’s so much more to this from his point of view. Yes he could just give up all that other stuff, years worth of guilt and trauma and a deep feeling of personal responsibility for the problems he feels he’s caused. Until he’s resolved those issues, or at least come to grips with the reality that he DID do the best he could with a terrible situation, he’ll never be able to find peace with just giving that burden up. For himself, he NEEDS to finish what he’s started.

If he doesn’t, for the rest of his existence he’ll feel that he “settled” and didn’t really have a choice in the matter. And that would be HORRIBLE. For his own sake, he needs to finish this journey before he can freely choose to stay with the Winchesters, before he’ll feel like staying with Dean and Sam was his own free choice.

I can’t really overstate how important this arc is for Castiel. I cry every time I see a post whining about how he’s being “sent away” on a “pointless side mission” and “why can’t he just be happy at the bunker.” BECAUSE THIS IS THE RESOLUTION TO HIS DEPRESSION/PTSD ARC THAT WE’VE BEEN CLAMORING FOR! THIS IS WHAT WE’VE WANTED! Blankets are great but they won’t actually restore Cas’s agency to him. He needs to confront his guilt, to face his fears, and to learn a thing about himself. This is how that is happening on the show.

Dean’s had an ongoing thread of love… and love. Going all the way back to early s9. He admittedly went through a rough patch with the whole demon/MoC arc where he had to really look closely at himself and constantly try to understand himself, which has led to a remarkably calmer and more grounded Dean now.

There’s also the oft-mentioned “what do you want, dean?” being asked of him, going back to 10.16′s confession, where that narrative has been slowly and tentatively coming to the surface. What’s it like settling down with a hunter? HE ASKED THE HUNTING HUSBANDS POINT BLANK. Dean has been thinking about this CONSTANTLY. The conversation with Mildred in 11.11 was simply ONE instance (albeit a very pointed and memorable one) where he’s been made aware that he’s got someone on his mind.

Like, the entire back half of s11 (after the 11.11 line raised the question in our minds) was nothing but a long string of Dean “pining” for Cas, Dean losing sleep over researching ways to save Cas. Dean talking about Cas, and Sam reassuring him about Cas. Like, a constant low-level reminder that Dean’s pretty much always thinking about Cas.

These are constant undercurrents over the last few seasons. Do not worry. They haven’t forgotten about any of this. There’s still a long way to go.

  

 

[spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	20. Chapter 20

[Oct 27, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/152409058820/s7-anon-i-guess-im-just-pessimistic-about-them)

16 notes

**Anonymous asked: S7 anon. I guess I'm just pessimistic about them getting to the problems Cas has had building up, since they now have Mary leaving as well for the boys to be worried about and Dean seems to think him and Cas are cool, which Cas clearly isn't.**

I don’t think Dean feels that they’re “cool.” I mean, Mary leaving shattered him. He’d been putting on this fake happy “fake it til you make it” face like he usually does. He just desperately WANTED everything to be okay.

And yeah, he’s probably doing that to a smaller degree with Cas, because they DO have a history. He DOES trust Cas. And Cas has PROVEN his trust in return. He didn’t have any of that with Mary. He had 33 years worth of raising her up on an ever higher pedestal ever year until it all toppled over.

And it’s EPISODE 3 of the season. Just because Dean and Cas haven’t formally addressed their issues doesn’t mean they won’t.

Because their story isn’t of this CATACLYSMIC STRUCTURAL FAILURE level that Dean’s situation with Mary’s is. It’s a slow-burn to end all slow-burns. If nothing else, I trust that burn to keep right on burning, you know? I’ve seen nothing that makes me waver from that belief.

Dean and Cas aren’t at some sort of awful breaking point. Cas has issues, he’s dealing with them. Dean trusts him to come to him when he needs him. I mean… this is like the opposite of s6. This is the anti-s6. Superman has been reborn and given a second chance to do things right this time. And I trust that Cas is not a moron who hasn’t learned from his past mistakes. I mean, the whole point of him going out on his own here is for him to do his best to fix his past mistakes. And he KNOWS, his #1 mistake was not trusting Dean.

Some of his last words before the leviathan took over were, “I’m gonna find some way to redeem myself to you.” To DEAN. That’s not a lesson Cas is easily gonna forget.

  

 

[spn 12.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.03) [spn 7.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.01) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [s12 as s6 redux](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-as-s6-redux) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [REALLY TRULY THIS IS A LONG LONG LONG GAME AND WE'RE JUST PAST HALFTIME FOLKS](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/REALLY-TRULY-THIS-IS-A-LONG-LONG-LONG-GAME-AND-WE%27RE-JUST-PAST-HALFTIME-FOLKS) [THERE'S A LOT OF STUFF STILL TO WADE THROUGH AND IT WON'T HAPPEN QUICKLY SO I AM URGING CALM DESPITE ALL THE SHOUTY CAPS](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/THERE%27S-A-LOT-OF-STUFF-STILL-TO-WADE-THROUGH-AND-IT-WON%27T-HAPPEN-QUICKLY-SO-I-AM-URGING-CALM-DESPITE-ALL-THE-SHOUTY-CAPS)


	21. Chapter 21

[Nov 17, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/153316719205/ive-seen-some-great-destiel-is-headed-toward)

8 notes

**Anonymous asked: I've seen some great destiel is headed toward canon posts & some convincing it won't be canon posts lately and I'm just here needing Cas to come back so I can be in a good mood again. Feel like a ping pong ball lol.**

Yeah, I see both sides of the coin on it too, but because of who I am as a person I’m choosing to take the signs that things are still progressing in a positive way (mostly) that signs are good (and I’m talking way long term here, and not ~by x date~ or ~by the s12 finale~ or anything specific… just the general trend).

I know not everyone is as hopeful/positive/optimistic, but this is how my particular brain handles this whole ordeal without imploding.

And we know Cas will be back next week! WHEEE! I’m eager to see if he’s mentioned tonight, too. 

  

 

[the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [which is the reminder that this isn't an instant thing that's gonna just ~happen~ in a single episode](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-is-the-reminder-that-this-isn%27t-an-instant-thing-that%27s-gonna-just-~happen~-in-a-single-episode) [it's still happening though so that's what i'm ](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-still-happening-though-so-that%27s-what-i%27m-here-for)


	22. Chapter 22

[Nov 22, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/153536388590/my-brain-hurts-from-the-sheer-metatextuality-of)

39 notes

My brain hurts from the sheer metatextuality of s12. Here have some of the ridiculous maze of subjects I’ve been trying to wrap my head around today.

From 8.21, The Great Escapist:

> **Dean** : So you have been holed up here, or, or, or in a wigwam, or before that in some cave, listening to stories, reading books?  
>  **Metatron** : And it was something to watch. What you brought to His Earth, all the mayhem, the murder. Just the raw, wild invention of God’s naked apes… it was mind-blowing.  **But really… really, it was your storytelling. That is the true flower of free will. At least as you’ve mastered it so far. When you create stories, you become gods, of tiny, intricate dimensions unto themselves. So many worlds!**  I have read… as much as it’s possible for an angel to read, and I haven’t caught up.

From 8.23, Sacrifice:

> **Metatron** : Do you have any idea what it would be like to be plucked from obscurity, to sit at God’s feet, to be asked to write down his word? The ache I felt when he was gone, telling myself, ‘Father’s left, but look what he’s left us – paradise.’ But you and your archangels couldn’t leave well enough alone. You ran me from my home. Did you really think you could do all of that to me and there’d be no payback?

From 9.18, Meta Fiction:

> **Metatron:**  What makes a story work? Is it the plot, the characters, the text? The subtext? And who gives a story meaning? Is it the writer? Or you? Tonight, I thought I would tell you a little story and let you decide.

From 9.23, Do You Believe in Miracles?:

> **METATRON** : You know, while you could never quite pull it together, Castiel, while you’re sitting here with Your Grace slowly burning away and your reputation long extinguished? No curiosity. You didn’t read enough. You never learned how to tell a good story.  
>  **CASTIEL** : No, but you did. (points to the radio broadcasting Metatron’s speech to all the angels, who enter the office and take him into custody)

From 11.20, Don’t Call Me Shurley:

> **Metatron** : You want to write the best-selling autobiography of all time, you explain to me – tell me why you abandoned me. Us.  
>  **Chuck** : Because you disappointed me. You all disappointed me.  
>  **Metatron** : No, look. I know I’m a disappointment, but you’re wrong about humanity. They are your greatest creation because they’re better than you are. Yeah, sure, they’re weak and they cheat and steal and… destroy and disappoint. But they also give and create and they sing and dance and love. And above all, they never give up. But you do.

From 11.21, All in the Family:

> **Dean** : You started this. You started all of this. But does that give you the right to end it? You know, we’re not just some toys you throw away. I think you owe us more than that.  
>  **Chuck** : If my plan doesn’t work, then humans will step up. You, Sam, others that are the chosen will have to find a way. It’s why I saved you years ago. You’re the firewall between light and darkness

From 11.23, Alpha and Omega:

> **Dean** : What about us? What about Earth?  
>  **Chuck** : Earth will be fine. It’s got you… and Sam.

From 12.06, Celebrating the Life of Asa Fox:

> **Dean** : This is a real angel blade. This guy was legit.  
>  **Sam** : Did you know people tell stories about us?  
>  **Dean** : Yeah. Yeah, apparently we’re a little bit legendary.

*doesn’t even bother transcribing everything about this episode that had to do with stories, storytelling (and “telling stories” aka “lying”), reading the written word and then seeking the truth for oneself, the story became the story, and what’s the  _real_  story in pretty much EVERY layer of the text and subtext, from visually evoking the opening scene of the entire series with the original players standing by as witnesses (Sam and Mary), to Sam and Jody openly curious as to what kind of chick Dean is while he sits there eating pizza out of a box, to Mary’s quest to fill in 33 years worth of missing story in her own life, to Dean’s dilemma of rewriting the story he’s been telling himself for those same 33 years…*

This is why Metatron HAD to be the one to confront Chuck in 11.20. Chuck was the original Meta character, and Metatron was a weak reflection of him.

And why Dean, Cas, and Sam (and now Mary, if that’s the path she chooses), are still Team Free Will, and why their story is legendary.

Also, please have this image of me, right now:

  

 

[spn 12.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.06) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 8.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.21) [spn 8.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.23) [spn 9.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.18) [spn 9.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.23) [spn 11.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.20) [spn 11.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.21) [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [i blame metadouche for everything including global warming and bee colony collapse](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-blame-metadouche-for-everything-including-global-warming-and-bee-colony-collapse) [if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you-say-%27mysterious-ways%27-so-help-me-i-will-kick-your-ass) [putting the TEAM back in Team Free Will](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/putting-the-TEAM-back-in-Team-Free-Will) [the story became the story](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-story-became-the-story) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [because that's part of the story here too and a not insignificant part](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-that%27s-part-of-the-story-here-too-and-a-not-insignificant-part) [i had no idea what else to do with this revelation and it's just TOO BIG to put into coherent words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-had-no-idea-what-else-to-do-with-this-revelation-and-it%27s-just-TOO-BIG-to-put-into-coherent-words) [but this is what's swirling around in my head right now and I'll just be in the corner staring at the wall for a bit now](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-this-is-what%27s-swirling-around-in-my-head-right-now-and-I%27ll-just-be-in-the-corner-staring-at-the-wall-for-a-bit-now) [dabb is giving us the subtext equivalent of a linzer torte here there's like 15 layers of delicious to enjoy](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dabb-is-giving-us-the-subtext-equivalent-of-a-linzer-torte-here-there%27s-like-15-layers-of-delicious-to-enjoy)


	23. Chapter 23

[Dec 5, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/154105246150/asker-of-the-destiel-in-season-12-message-aw)

7 notes

**Anonymous asked: (asker of the "destiel in season 12" message) Aw, i'm sorry!! I didn't mean for it to be overwhelming or intimidating. I guess the question basically just boils down to me not understanding how to read the destiel subtext in this season, where i had no trouble last season because i found it so obvious. So i guess, what makes the two different? If any of that helps?? If not, don't worry about it, i'm sure you have better things to do! <3**

Hi again! I still do have your message, and I keep debating whether it’s worth going through every episode point by point and detailing every last possible destiel reference, parallel, and subtextual coding that I’ve seen all season, or if it’s just easier for everyone to point to all the meta I’ve written and reblogged on the subject since 12.01 aired. Because there is a not insignificant amount of it on my blog already.

As far as how to read the subtext, it’s really just the same as it ever was. At least, I’d thought so until I got your message. I don’t know what’s different about this season as compared to s11 that’s making it harder for you to “see” it there, you know?

I think all I can really do is keep doing what I’ve been doing, writing and reblogging all the relevant destiel meta as I see it. I’ve probably made or reblogged a thousand posts since s12 started nearly two months ago, and a heck of a lot of them have been about Dean and Cas, and DeanandCas. So, I mean, it’s not like we haven’t been discussing this endlessly.

I don’t know if just reading all these discussions we’ve had (and by “we” here I mean the meta-y bloggers I talk to most and reblog tons of stuff from all the time) would help or not. I don’t know if the subtext has just become so hammer-to-the-face obvious to me personally because I’m watching the show expecting to see it now, or if it’s become murkier to perceive for the general audience who isn’t specifically looking for it, or what.

I just… really don’t know what to tell you short of just standing back and pointing at my entire blog.

I guess one more important thing to remember is that you say the subtext was easy to read in s11, but I recall the Dark Days toward the beginning of the season when outrage was bubbling in the fandom over how obvious it was that they were sinking the destiel ship because it was SO OBVIOUS that Dean didn’t really care about Cas (recall if you will the rage and wank after 11.03 over the whole “why is Dean flirting with a woman when he’s supposed to be searching for Cas?” scene… because damn if that wasn’t the exact wrong takeaway from that scene in retrospect, you know?)

Or recall how Dean was so uncaring to Cas when Cas was back at the bunker “recovering” yet sinking into an ever deeper depression. How cold Cas and Dean seemed toward one another in 11.06 when their sole interaction seemed to be a fight, and the wank over Dean’s scenes with Amara.

Was the destiel subtext so obvious to you then? If so, why has the comparatively uncomplicated destiel subtext eluded you so far this season? Because early in the season is the setup of the “conflict.” This is where the emotional stakes are laid out on the table. It’s not always clear where they’re headed, and that just makes for good storytelling. But I swear, it’s still there.

Coming off the second half of s11 that basically set up Dean’s pining for Cas as a central plot point of the last dozen or so episodes of the entire season, yeah, the introduction of a different set of emotional priorities (primarily via Mary and the new issues her return has brought to the surface, as well as Cas’s own personal guilt and unresolved depression and self-worth issues) is taking a more central stage right now (just like Dean’s trauma associated with recovering from the Mark and his super fucked-up emotional issues with Amara took a more central stage in the beginning of s11).

I think that’s important to keep in mind, but we’ve still got a good two thirds of the season left to go. We’re still in the “set ‘em up” phase of the storyline. It’s gonna be a while before we get to the “knock ‘em down” bit.

Do you still want me to try and answer your original question? I mean, maybe when we get into the midseason Hellatus and we don’t have anything new to chew over week to week (and after I finally get back to writing this story I abandoned when I went on vacation last week, because ugh, I need to finish it) I can devote some serious time to compiling a moment by moment Destiel reference guide, but seriously, it would be the kind of project that could legitimately take a week.

You might get faster results by just going over to [@elizabethrobertajones](https://tmblr.co/mgG_5cqPDBqPGN1DslU_e6Q)‘s blog and looking through her far better organized tags for relevant subject matter. I checked my own [destiel tag](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) and it’s not exactly helpful. I usually tag my posts by individual characters, rather than destiel… I know I suck. But you might try the [scheherazade of supernatura](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the%20scheherazade%20of%20supernatural)l tag too. Sorry if this isn’t exactly helpful. I don’t know how else to help. :/

  

 

[spn s12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12) [spn s11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [ooh yeah maybe try that tag too](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/ooh-yeah-maybe-try-that-tag-too) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [i actually feel really bad that I don't have an easy answer for you :(](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-actually-feel-really-bad-that-I-don%27t-have-an-easy-answer-for-you-%3A%28)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	24. Chapter 24

[Dec 6, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/154141331995/heres-one-of-the-most-perplexing-things-and-holes)

117 notes

**Anonymous asked: Here's one of the most perplexing things and holes in the nay-sayers' reasoning when it comes to destiel, to me, who used also used to not see it and be a doubter. When you think about how tv and character arcs usually works, Dean should have a love interest by now. Or someone you at least know he's eventually going to end up with. If none of that applies to Cas, then Dean just doesn't have one and isn't fulfilling a classic, standard trope his arc is setting him up for. That doesn't make sense.**

Hi there! And yeah, this doesn’t make sense.

They spent a lot of time over the last few seasons letting us know that Dean was pining for someone. Implying that it was  _someone specific_ , and not just some imaginary theoretical dream person, you know? You can’t pine for someone you haven’t met yet.

Not just for Dean, but there has been increasing mention of things like “retirement” and “settling down” and “maybe with another hunter.” And then the back half of s11 revolved around Dean searching more and more desperately for a way to save Cas.

I feel like I’ve made this post before… (a quick search of my blog reminds me that there are already [26 posts on this subject](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/search/settling+down)) (but sure hey why not have 27? I guess Imma keep typing now :P)

Running parallel to this theme of settling down with another hunter is the more general “What is family?” and “Where do I belong?” themes. The first seems to apply to Sam, Dean, and Cas equally, while Cas has been most visibly struggling with the second in recent seasons. It applies to Sam and Dean, too.

In s12 so far, the “What is family” and “where do I belong” issues have moved more to the surface as the most immediate questions that they’re addressing, but that doesn’t mean the questions about romantically settling down with someone have been swept off the table. We’re just working on the most immediate concerns first, and with the return of Mary sort of destabilizing all of their personal lives at the moment, those family issues are taking precedence for now.

Not to mention that Cas is FINALLY in a place where he truly has free will again. He’s not being controlled by outside forces, his life isn’t hanging in the balance (like with his humanity/stolen grace arc), he no longer feels an obligation to take orders from Heaven, and he’s free to make his own choices. So what will he choose in the long run? When he finally is able to confront Lucifer, what will he do when that mission is finished (however it ends up resolving itself)?

I’m REALLY looking forward to the Cas-centric mini-arc (from what we’ve been told it begins in 12.10 and continues through at least 12.12). I’m hoping he gets some relief from the burden of guilt he’s been carrying for years now (since the end of the first Apocalypse really). With that burden lifted, he might finally feel like he can begin to let go of his past and choose his own future.

We’ve also seen Sam looking around for his own potential future and wondering if there might be someone out there for him. He’s also very heavily invested in the whole Stop Lucifer Project, and a lot of his more personal search for happiness has been back-burnered, at least for now. I don’t think any of his underlying desires for a more settled future have gone away, but for right now they’ve simply got bigger fish to fry.

As for Dean, he’s been slowly beginning to learn that the idealized version of his life before Mary’s death had been just that… Idealized. The things he’d remembered (or been told about by John) were not necessarily the Whole Story. The basis for what Dean had always believed about “normal life” and the life he’d always felt deprived of (and possibly not even worthy of) has been smashed to dust. It’s left him floundering and vulnerable, but gradually he’s been building a more realistic and solid foundation for what his own version of normal life could potentially be. A lot of that is coming through his growing relationship with Mary– the REAL Mary instead of the memorialized version he carried around with him all these years.

But because of the Lucifer situation and the instability and looming potential threat the Men of Letters pose to them, even his relationship with Mary is developing more slowly than it otherwise might. Let alone his relationship with Cas.

And oh GOSH why is it always Crowley insinuating himself in between Dean and Cas?

[Originally posted by onebigfandomfamily](https://tmblr.co/ZHfT2m1dkMhVm)

*shakes fists at Crowley*

*he’s really worse than the whole Interrupting Moose shtick*

*why isn’t Interloper Crowley more of a thing in fic? because that shit’s canon.*

Anyway, that brings us to the weight of all the subtext (and actual surface-layer text), because Dean and Cas each seemed to have worked out about half the equation. They’ve just both been working on it from opposite sides, though.

We’ve known for a long time that Cas always comes when Dean calls. He did everything for Dean, everything Dean asked, and was prepared to stay by Dean’s side until the end of time (the 10.22 “everyone you love will be long gone except for me” speech). The fact that Cas would willingly stay with Dean is canon. But does he truly believe he fits in to a “normal life” as part of a human family? That’s Cas’s most basic unanswered question. He wants to live, but as what, a human or an angel? (thanks again 9.06)

We know that Dean really wants some sort of a normal life, but he doesn’t even seem to know what a “normal” family life would be for him anymore. He wants something deeper with someone, but he’s not even sure if it’s something he can have. We know he needs Cas, we know he would ask Cas to stay with him if he even believed that it was something he was  _allowed_  to ask. He’s made that first tentative offer of “brotherhood,” and a home with him (and Sam) at the bunker, but Cas has chosen to leave yet again. And Dean offered to go with him, and Cas turned him down.

*tears at hair and rends garments*

So there’s been this HUGE buildup of What Does Dean Want and Who Is Dean Pining For and all this groundwork laid for Dean to eventually settle down with a hunter… and yet they haven’t seen fit to introduce a new character to fill this role. Which as you said creates this huge gaping  ~~angel-shaped~~  hole in the story… unless you realize that there already is a character who fits perfectly into that hole.

For Cas, that  ~~lumberjack shaped~~  gaping hole is what awaits him when he finally feels free to simply make his own choices. It really feels like he’s getting close, here. Then again, the story often conspires to create new obstacles. Right now for Cas it’s the hunt for Lucifer and his own sense of guilt, but we still have the MoL issues we’re going to have to deal with sooner or later. From the spoilers we have for 12.08 so far, we know that Mick will be returning, and we might get another glimpse of Mr. Ketch as well.

The Brits of Letters already know about Cas, so it’s quite possible that he’ll be in as much danger form them as Sam and Dean will, and this could at least keep them all working more closely together (which really, I’d settle for that for right now).

There’s a lot more s12 to come, and I look forward to watching this continue to develop. :)

  

 

[spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [spn s11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11) [the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	25. Chapter 25

[Dec 8, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/154225766990/bummed-out-to-see-some-people-say-that-these-last)

20 notes

**Anonymous asked: bummed out to see some people say that these last seasons dean treats cas terribly, that doesn't even treat him like a friend, i'm just like "what show are u watching" if anything dean's showing how much cas means to him, all the overt pining last season, wtf in s11 dean told cas the most important thing is that he'd get well not the job, last episode dean was not ok with the idea that cas could die but people took it as if he didn't give a fuck about cas, they just want to see dean babying cas**

Oh yeah. Couple things here. First of all, I’ve been married to Mr. Mittens for nearly 20 years (we’ve been together almost 21 years… oh my god… that’s nearly half my sad little life…). ANYWAY. The way Dean and Cas talk to each other? Is basically me and Mr. Mittens. There’s a reason why all the posts about their interactions lately are getting HASHTAG MARRIED comments from old married people.

This is just Dean’s personality. And like Mr. Mittens (whose motto is ‘I kid because I love’), this is the way Dean grumpily expresses his care for people. If he didn’t care, he wouldn’t say anything at all.

And yeah, he was NOT OKAY with Cas’s plan to distract Lucifer while he and Sam tried to save the huge room full of innocent people. But really, Dean knew going in that NONE of them were likely to come out of this okay.

Remember 5.10? Yeah.

And making this EVEN WORSE for Dean is the extra-added grumpiness from feeling like Cas is just running away (from HIM) yet again this season. It’s a long-term, ongoing problem…

From 5.22:

> **DEAN** : That’s easy for you to say. He brought you back. But what about Sam? What about me, huh? Where’s my grand prize? All I got is my brother in a hole!   
>  **CASTIEL** : You got what you asked for, Dean. No paradise. No hell. Just more of the same. I mean it, Dean. What would you rather have? Peace or freedom?   
> When DEAN looks over, CASTIEL is gone.   
>  **DEAN** : Well, you really suck at goodbyes, you know that? 

And, I mean, that’s far from the only time that’s happened. Now, after Dean’s made about every offer he can to Cas asking him to stick around (short of just coming straight *pffft straight* out and saying CAS I WANT YOU TO STICK AROUND. PERMANENTLY. PLEASE.), Cas is still going off on his own. Which is probably part of the reason Dean HASN’T just asked him to stay point-blank like that. Fear of rejection.

So Dean settles for what he can get, but he doesn’t have to be happy about it. And this is how he expresses it.

  

 

[spn 12.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.07) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [HASHTAG MARRIED](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/HASHTAG-MARRIED) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [hey i forgot about that tag for a while but this all falls under that umbrella](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/hey-i-forgot-about-that-tag-for-a-while-but-this-all-falls-under-that-umbrella) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	26. Chapter 26

[Dec 19, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/154682843350/from-the-latest-in-a-long-series-of-brain-hurty)

17 notes

From the latest in a long series of brain-hurty conversations with [@elizabethrobertajones](https://tmblr.co/mgG_5cqPDBqPGN1DslU_e6Q). Today I happened to be watching 11.06 while reading her 9.18 rewatch notes. It’s been a wild morning, meta-wise.

bromance  
and there goes the hand  
*waves hi at crowley’s hand*

[elizabethrobertajones](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/) *crowley does not wave back because AAAAH*

[mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/) it looks like he’s waving though, but he’s actually screaming  
Metatron: “You get your grace back and you thought it would fix you, but it hasn’t.”

[elizabethrobertajones](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/) nooooo

[mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/) Cas taking his own grace back was just as much of a non-choice as having it taken away in the first place.  
He did what he had to do

[elizabethrobertajones](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/) oh god that goes RIGHT back to 9x18 and Metatron offering Cas some grace

[mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/) YEP  
I told you this was hurting my brain

[elizabethrobertajones](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/) Metatron also didn’t offer to give Cas back his real grace  
and in 10x18 was killing him so he had to do it to not die  
even though he wanted it  
you’re right, the choice in that exact moment was gone

[mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/) yeah

[elizabethrobertajones](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/) Cas has literally never decided properly what he wants to be >.>

[mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/) nope 

[…]

me again: even the “I just want to be an angel” in 9.23 was only because he thought Dean was really truly dead  
  


okay, imma finish reading the 9.18 thing and then reblog it, but here’s the link for those who can’t wait:  <http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/154662760683/9x18-rewatch-or-a-deep-shade-of-blue-is-aaalways>

  

 

[spn 9.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.18) [spn 11.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.06) [spn 9.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.23) [spn 10.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.18) [i blame metadouche for everything including global warming and bee colony collapse](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-blame-metadouche-for-everything-including-global-warming-and-bee-colony-collapse) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is) [the story became the story](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-story-became-the-story) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [revenge of the subtext](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/revenge-of-the-subtext) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	27. Chapter 27

[Dec 20, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/154727939875/hi-i-love-your-meta-your-response-to-fanimation)

102 notes

**[tinkdw](https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/) asked: Hi, I love your meta & your response to fanimation re: Castiel as an angel/human. I feel like the last seasons have really shown us Dean's feelings for Castiel (the crypt, purgatory, Cassifer) and now Castiel needs to show his as really he's not shown a lot in a long time (maybe because he doesn't fully understand his own and Dean's feelings?) and the most obvious way is for him to fall & become human (some kind of big sacrifice for Dean?)... which also fits with his personal arc, any thoughts?!**

Hi there, and thanks! :) (and [here’s a link to the response in question](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/154703604585/do-you-ever-think-about-how-castiel-is-essentially) for reference purposes) (it's also at the bottom of this "chapter" for easier reference purposes)

Aren’t these love tropes RIDICULOUS though? GAH!

I think that S11 was the first time in a LONG time that we really got a good reminder of how Dean feels about Cas, though. From 9.11 through 10.23, Dean was under the influence of the Mark. Things were so bad for him that I remember all the fandom drama over whether his lack of feeling, his lack of caring about anything really, meant they’d “ruined” the character of Dean Winchester and completely sunk destiel. There was despair.

The fact that Dean was under the influence of what we first thought to be a curse and then discovered was the primordial Darkness itself seems to get lost along the way. I mean, a lot of the early s11 spec was concerned that, like Len in 11.05, Dean was soulless. There was positive SCREECHING that Amara had actually consumed Dean’s soul. That was a thing that some people were absolutely convinced of.

The fact that Dean was struggling with what the Mark had done to him and the strange powerlessness he felt in Amara’s presence was due to her unwanted influence over him slowly became clear by midseason. Dean was working through a LOT of guilt and trying to come to terms with what he’d been and done with the Mark, and the responsibility he felt at having been a part of releasing it into the world.

And now Cas has been coping with the same sorts of issues about his involvement in releasing Lucifer back into the world. On top of Castiel’s personal journey of deciding what his place in the world is, which I sort of covered in that linked reply at the top there, he needs to figure out who he wants to be and where he wants to be. Now that Lucifer is (theoretically) dealt with (at least for now…), he’s got some time and space to really focus on himself.

Because really, for the last half of s11, Cas was just trying to survive being possessed by Lucifer. I can’t get that scene from 11.14 out of my head where Cas breaks through to stop Lucifer from killing Sam, and his entire reason for letting Lucifer stay during that brief moment where Cas had enough control left to banish him was  _because only Lucifer could rescue Dean from that sub_.

Cas essentially sacrificed himself to Lucifer  _to save Dean_.

We learn in 11.18 that after that little act of rebellion, Lucifer (or maybe Cas chose it) kept him locked away much more tightly. Cas retreated to the bunker’s kitchen in his mind. :( Which is a place we’ve seen Dean take refuge recently, too.

10.22′s reverse crypt scene (as painful as it was to watch) proved that Cas would stay by Dean’s side for the rest of time. That’s a pretty strong declaration. Early s11 had Cas suffering the attack dog spell, and coming to Sam and Dean for help only after his first plea to the other angels to help him failed. He didn’t want to put the Winchesters in danger, but they did eventually find a way to save him. The guilt over having hurt Dean while he was controlled by the spell weighed on both Cas and Dean. Because as usual, instead of talking about stuff they just pushed everything down and tried to move on as if there was a clean slate between them.

I mean, in truth there’s just so much chalk on the slate that it’s got a solid quarter inch of overlapping white. They need a chisel to get back to a blank slate at this point.

I love how helpful Cas was trying to be back in 11.04, too. Even over the phone, Dean and Sam both were concerned for him, telling him he deserved a rest to recover, but Cas clearly spent a huge amount of time both researching and just talking on the phone with Dean.

Frankly the biggest gesture that Cas has made for Dean recently was agreeing to  _live_  for Dean in 11.23. He offered to go with Dean to face Amara, but Dean asked him instead to stay with Sam, so that Dean could know that both of them would be there to take care of each other after he was gone (theoretically forever, if the soul bomb had detonated…). And Cas chose to live. For Dean. Fully believing that he might never see Dean again.

The thing about Cas eventually choosing humanity is that the last thing I want is for it to be some sort of “I did what I had to do” moment. I want it to be his obvious choice, made without any sort of external pressure or to avert some sort of cosmic tragedy, you know?

The fact that these issues of Cas’s guilt, his duty to heaven, his responsibility to fix what he believes he’s broken and right his perceived wrongs are being addressed so frequently in the story lately, and the fact that we’re apparently getting at least THREE episodes that focus specifically on Cas, will hopefully help him finally come to some realizations about where and what he wants to be.

As for giving up his grace and choosing to be truly human, I don’t know if that’ll be in the cards for this season or not, but yeah, I do think that any personal revelations Cas comes to will advance him down the road to that eventual choice.

Where we’ve left him after 12.08, sitting alone in the bunker for six weeks, two days, and ten hours like this:

I mean… It’s not hard to imagine what thoughts have been plaguing him.

  

 

[spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [tinkdw](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/tinkdw)

 

 

 

Dec 19, 2016

167 notes

**[fanimation4231domination](https://fanimation4231domination.tumblr.com/) asked: Do you ever think about how Castiel is essentially a wavelength of celestial intent. I'm convinced the nature of his love for dean could not be easily articulated. Perhaps it is something that can only be understood in the context of being an angel?**

Hi there! I saw this ask last night, and read it over and laughed because there was no way I could answer this until I’d actually slept some. :D

And yeah, Cas was essentially a wavelength of celestial intent, and I’m sure he still thinks of himself that way a lot of the time, but really he hasn’t been JUST that in a really long time.

He had his first brush with humanity (or near humanity) SEVEN SEASONS AGO. Back during s5 he was as close to human as an angel can get and still have his grace. From 5.21:

During s8 he essentially wanted to learn how to be a human, like in 8.08 where he decided he wanted to become a hunter. He didn’t realize he was being mind-controlled by Naomi at the time, unfortunately.

Then he literally was human for half of s9. He understands what humans feel. He has a human context by which to measure how he’d always felt and thought as that celestial wavelength. He can tell the difference.

Other angels haven’t thought of Cas as one of them in a while either. In 9.22, the angel who was burnt with holy oil in Cas’s fake heaven said this to him:

> **Josiah:**  I would rather die than owe my life to you, Castiel. You play at being noble. You play at being one of us. But I look into your eyes and I don’t see an angel staring back at me.

And any discussion of Cas and his relationship with humanity (pffft humanity) always makes me think of his entire conversation with Ephraim in 9.06.

> CASTIEL: You know, there’s a lot you don’t understand about humanity at first. If you would just stop—  
> EPHRAIM: Stop? I won’t stop … until I wash the planet clean of all suffering.  
> So much pain and despair, so many voices begging out for relief.

…

> CASTIEL: Do you really think you’re doing Heaven’s work down here?EPHRAIM: I know I am.  
> CASTIEL: Well, you’re wrong. Earth can be a hard place. But these humans, they can get better. They’re just doing the best they can.  
> EPHRAIM: Is that what you think you’re doing, Castiel – the best you can? Well, I’m sorry. But if this is the best that the famed Castiel can do, you’re a more urgent case than I thought. I used to admire you. You failed more often than you succeeded. But at least you played big.

…

> EPHRAIM: Shh-shh-shhh. It’ll be over soon. I’ll take the pain away.  
> CASTIEL: I want to live.  
> EPHRAIM:  But as what, Castiel? As an angel? or a man?

There’s other angels who have questioned if he’s still really an angel or not, but there’s also the fact that Cas has been trying to teach other angels about humanity pretty much since the beginning…

Remember that line in 6.20, where he was trying to teach other angels what freedom meant… “It’s a bit like teaching poetry to fish.” Because Cas DOES understand it. Even back then, he got it. And for some reason, very few other angels ever have.

Those “rogue angels” from early s10 who just wanted to live on Earth and experience humanity and creation for themselves? Yeah, they got it. He’d made a lot of headway in getting Hannah to understand at least where he was coming from, even though in the end she decided that those “human things” just weren’t for her. In she has this conversation with Cas:

> HANNAH: Without rules, there is chaos. Out of chaos rise angels like Naomi, Bartholomew…Metatron.  
> CASTIEL: Well, perhaps I’ve been down here with them for too long. There’s seemingly nothing but chaos. But not all bad comes from it. Art. Hope. Love. Dreams.  
> HANNAH: But t-those are human things.  
> CASTIEL: Yes.

But by 10.07, after trying to experience some of those things for herself, but then feeling just the echo of what her vessel felt for her husband, Hannah couldn’t even begin to reconcile those things:

> HANNAH: It’s hard letting go… of a story, a mission. But what of the humans whose lives we sacrifice in the name of that mission?  
> CASTIEL: What of them?  
> HANNAH: We always said the humans were our original mission. Maybe it’s time, Castiel – time to put them first.  
> CASTIEL: Where is all this coming from?  
> HANNAH: Being on earth, working with you, I’ve felt things. Human things – passions, hungers. To shower, feel water on my skin… to get closer to you. But all of that was nothing compared to what I felt when I saw him.  
> Her husband – his anger and his grief. And Caroline was inside of me, screaming out for him, for her life back. These f-feelings, they aren’t for me, for us. They belong to her. I know it’s time to step aside.  
> [Hannah smiles, leans forward and kisses Castiel on the cheek. Castiel nods.]  
> Goodbye, Castiel.

And Cas gets it, he does. But he really isn’t like Hannah anymore. He’s really not intruding on anyone in his vessel. That body is Cas, and has been for a very long time. There’s no one else in there “screaming for their life back,” and those feelings– all the feelings from the wavelengths to his body’s reactions– are all his.

Then when we see Hannah again in 10.17, she says this:

> HANNAH: I swore I’d never occupy another vessel, but … we need to have this conversation face-to-face.

She really, truly believes that Human Things are for humans and angel things are for angels, and never the twain should meet, except out of extreme necessity. And Cas just… doesn’t feel that way.

This is one of the core themes in Cas’s storylines for the longest time. It all boils down to any number of versions of the question, “Who are you?” and “What do you want to be?”

Are you an angel or a man, Cas? Because even the other angels are having a difficult time deciding.

Soooo, back to your question. Whatever Cas feels for anything is probably going to be processed through his understanding based on billions of years living as a wavelength of celestial intent, but I think he’s got a very good grasp of those human things, too. And in a very human way.

  

 

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [too many episodes to tag them all](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/too-many-episodes-to-tag-them-all) [fanimation4231domination](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/fanimation4231domination)


	28. Chapter 28

[Dec 28, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155094354495/12-yknow-cas-has-had-his-angel-hood-insulted)

54 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 Y'know, Cas has had his "angel-hood" insulted many times. He's been called broken, defective, a crack in his chassis, etc. And those insults were directed at such a key part of his identity, leading to one of Cas's main character arcs (who am i? and all that). Cas saw those things as bad, and he took them to heart as deep, cutting comments towards who he is as a being. But now i have to wonder if Cas still/would still think of them as an insult. If we're meant to.**

[mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155092459640/12-yknow-cas-has-had-his-angel-hood-insulted):

> > 2/2 Like, with how far Cas has come and what we know about angels, it’s kinda subtly flipped. Is it such a bad thing to be called a poor example of his kind, if he no longer wishes to be associated with/identify as an angel? I guess i’m saying it kinda looks like we’re eventually headed towards someone insulting Cas’s identity as an angel and him saying something like “thank you, that’s because i’m a human.” And being proud and at peace with it.
> 
> Hello friendo! I got this message last night when I was about passing out from exhaustion, and I woke up today with a migraine and didn’t want to sully this message with ravings, but I’ve made the executive decision to try and answer it anyway because it’s just that pleasing to me.
> 
> Can’t hurt. Maybe it’ll be therapeutic.
> 
> I know we think of Cas as the BEST example of an angel. And Chuck has kind of implied that with all the bringing Cas back from the dead and such that he’s done over the years…
> 
> And we get the idea that Dean probably thinks the same way about him. Or at least, he did. Lately Dean’s begun thinking of him as a Winchester, as one of them.
> 
> Sam’s got a little way to go there, considering he still, as late as 11.18, was thinking of Cas as something separate from his body. But we know, like Dean does, that even Cas thinks of it as his own body. He identifies as that body, like a person. Like a human.
> 
> Dean’s also spent more time with Cas when he was a human (and Sam was limited in his interactions with human Cas by Gadreel). It’s heavily implied that Dean and Cas have talked about some of these issues, too. Dean’s insistence in 11.18 that Cas’s body wasn’t an “it,” but Cas himself seems to justify that belief.
> 
> Cas’s latest encounters with his heavenly brethren, going all the way back to s8 really when he learned about Naomi and the whole “reprogramming” program in heaven seems to have begun this huge shift in him. Back in s4 he talked about “doorways to doubt” being dangerous things for angels, but he’s been given reason after reason to doubt the word of heaven, up to and including the word of Chuck himself.
> 
> It’s not an easy thing to reject the beliefs he’s held (and been forced to hold through the aforementioned reprogramming) for billions of years. I completely sympathize with the struggle he’s been going through during his transition to humanity.
> 
> He’s trying to find his place, to understand where he truly belongs in the universe, and he’s been experimenting with humanity more and more. He’s come so far from his first attempts at being a hunter, hasn’t he?
> 
> [Originally posted by cassndean](https://tmblr.co/ZDlRMi1-VNPWI)
> 
> He’s still got a massive pile of guilt and a sense of personal responsibility to heaven, but even that’s becoming less and less of an issue. We know he’s going to be dealing with an “old enemy” in 12.10, and we’ll be seeing him deal with some of those personal responsibilities he’s still feeling that tether him to heaven. I am so excited to see how this storyline unfolds and the way Cas is able to grow and hopefully find a little peace for himself.
> 
> And yeah, I would absolutely screech if Cas flat-out responded to an angel insult with the fact that he’s human. I mean, technically he’d have to legitimately  _be_ human for him to actually say it… but that’s not out of the realm of possibility.
> 
> He’s already responded to Ketch referring to him as “Angel” and “Halo” with, “My name is Castiel.” He didn’t reply with the kind of sass he does with Dean… “I don’t have a harp.” Pffft. :D
> 
> I think it’s interesting that he didn’t respond to “Halo” with
> 
> Yeah, he’s definitely come a long way…
> 
> *aside to note that after working on this post for the better part of an hour, my headache seems to be gone… I attribute it to the healing power of thinking about Castiel*

 

I should feel worse about this, but somehow I always get sidetracked answering messages like this, and forget to mention one glaringly obvious point. In this case, it’s Cas’s identity as a hunter, via Dean.

For Cas, his identity as a human, and his “ideal” of humanity, really, is Dean. And Dean is a hunter. Widely considered to be one of the best hunters in the world (at least, you know, as an outside objective observer… :P)

From that point of view, Dean as Castiel’s primary exemplar of humanity in general, Dean’s opinion of Castiel is exceedingly important to Cas. And the things Dean has said to him out loud over the years have run the gamut from praise and pride to utter disappointment.

Speaking as a human who has experienced the heartbreak of feeling like a disappointment and a failure, those few disappointments have the power to outweigh ten times the amount of praise and success, at least emotionally. It’s so hard to shake those feelings of inadequacy, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

In a lot of ways, Cas is still trying to redeem himself in Dean’s eyes. Dean has told him he’s part of the family, that he’s always got a place with him (and Sam), but Cas is still trying to get to the point where he feels he’s earned it, that he deserves it. And that’s the other part of his journey toward accepting what he’s been slowly becoming for years.

*gosh this was a lot easier to think about with my headache gone, with a nice warm cup of tea in my It’s Cas. Not Cass. mug! :P*

  

 

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	29. Chapter 29

 

 

[Dec 31, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155225902795/12-a-friend-once-compared-dean-and-cass-romantic)

18 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 A friend once compared Dean and Cas's romantic journey to Odysseus and Penelope. So many obstacles and moments of frustration and lost hope, such a long wait but they can both see the shore and imagine what it's going to be like when they find it. And it's worth the journey. They have both had had their share of Circes; harbors they felt good and safe and at peace at, with someone they did love and care deeply for (Cassie, Lisa, Daphne when Cas was Emmanuel).**

 

> 2/2 But they weren’t home. They were stops along the journey. Meaningful, important stops but they weren’t the shoreline Dean and Cas can see at the end far off in the distance. I know this was unusual circumstance, but Daphne wasn’t Penelope (Dean) no matter how much Cas/Emmanuel appreciated and cared for her. And Dean loved Cassie and Lisa and got a lot out of his relationships with them, but they aren’t Penelope (Cas) either. These situations aren’t endgame. I just liked that analogy:-)

Oh gosh hi, and thanks for bringing this to me. I think this is a lovely analogy. It might not be 100% accurate, because Dean and Cas haven’t been entirely separated all this time, but wow yeah this is how all the pining feels. :D

This is sort of why I tag all my destiel meta-ish posts ‘the scheherazade of supernatural,” because that’s the other story that I relate to the way their whole narrative is unfolding. Their conversations happen in small chunks and always seem unfinished (or interrupted…), and it’s being stretched out so slowly over so much drama. Very much the way Scheherazade told her tales over the 1001 Nights. As long as she left the story unfinished, she knew she’d survive again until the next night where she could pick it up again. Over the course of those nights, and so many other stories she told, the man who’d been planning to kill her began to fall in love with her. And it took all 1001 nights of endlessly unfinished stories for their entire love story to grow.

 

 

  

 

[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)

 

[Dec 31, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155226423355/12-yknow-i-really-like-the-way-they-portray)

18 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 Y'know, I really like the way they portray Dean and Cas's relationship. It's not codependent. It's not toxic. There's equal give and take of mistakes made and damage done. They forgive each other, but don't just let each other off the hook. They talk to each other. They don't take each others crap and call the other out on their bullshit. I know there was a time when all this wasn't true, and of course there have been times of unhealthy-ness.**

> 2/2 But overall, it’s gone one to develop into probably one of the most healthy if not the most healthy relationships Dean’s ever had (still progress to be made, of course). And i really think Cas was key to that. Dean’s views on people and things and relationships have shifted so much since knowing Cas, and Dean needed that. So i guess i’m trying to say i just really love what they do for each other.

Oh gosh. Same as that last message I just replied to: SAME.

I feel like I’m really dropping the ball here, but it’s New Year’s Eve and I’m being lazy so I’ll just point to, like, the entirety of my blog for reference reading. :D

  

[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	30. Chapter 30

[Jan 2, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155312619060/with-this-whole-dean-and-sam-being-in-jail-thing)

35 notes

**Anonymous asked: With this whole Dean and Sam being in jail thing, do you think we'll see some parallels to how Dean was feeling last season when Cas was being possessed and they had to rescue him? I mean obviously Dean won't be in that situation for almost a whole season like Cas was, but it looks like we'll see the same pining, feelings of helplessness, etc. that Dean went through but on Cas's side. On a separate note, i'm extremely curious to see how Dean managed to be able to contact him?!**

Oh no! No no no… But… YES!

Incredibly, I was thinking back over all the times Dean had been in a situation where HE was the one left behind pining for Cas, to one degree or another:

  * 4.20, sure he was worried about Cas, but there wasn’t exactly the same weight of feelings back it up as there was by the time we got to s11, but there was  _something_  there, more than what someone would expect from the concern for a lost ally…
  * 5.01, after learning that Cas had essentially sacrificed himself in their failed attempt to keep Lucifer locked in the cage (I learned that from my friend Cas, you son of a bitch)… but he didn’t have long to mourn before Cas was shockingly returned to him…
  * 5.22, Cas flapped off to Heaven, leaving Dean oh so very alone (Well, you really suck at goodbyes, you know that?… said to the emptiness after Cas booped off for what Dean thought might be the last time…)



And all that’s well and good, but we never really got to see the effect of these things on Dean, drawn out as a plot point, until s6. Sure, Cas’s distance and abruptness with Dean through the early part of s6 left Dean feeling hurt and angry, but really 6.20 seems to be a major turning point. From then on we’re invited to see Dean’s hurt play out more fully… cue the pining!

  * 6.20, leaving Cas in the ring of holy fire after learning of his betrayal, and then failing to talk Cas out of his plans
  * most of s7 is just one long, drawn out painfest of Dean mourning (a lot of it over Cas) (i mean 7.09, eight episodes after losing Cas and tucking his coat into his trunk for safe keeping, Dean drugged out on TDK Slammer:  Are you kidding? I’m fine! I – I actually feel great. The best I’ve felt in a couple months. Cas? Black goo? I don’t even care anymore. And you know what’s even better? I don’t care that I don’t care.)



Yeah, that’s not sad at all >.>

  * Then we have Cas come back just long enough for him to take on Sam’s hell damage and go catatonic. Also, not sad at all…
  * Then Purgatory and WHERE’S THE ANGEL and spending A FUCKING YEAR there when he had a direct ticket back home because he wasn’t willing to leave without Cas
  * Altering his own memories because he couldn’t handle the thought that Cas had pushed him out and chose to stay behind in Purgatory
  * Praying to Cas every night, not just in Purgatory but even when Cas miraculously came back, despite acting “sketchy” (thanks 8.17)
  * Having his own feelings and worries thrown back in his face by Naomi (If only he felt the same…)
  * Which then grew into the heartbreak of having to send newly-human Cas away after the angels fell, because Sam was essentially being held hostage by another angel.
  * Oh god like two seasons worth of I DID WHAT I HAD TO DO on both sides…
  * Then we have s11… THE PINING OH THE PINING



We have seen a bit of Cas’s perspective on the loss of Dean, especially during late s9 when Dean was succumbing to the Mark (Dean, What have you done? from 9.18, when Cas learns Dean took on the Mark). Then Cas’s Sad Blue Bathrobe “I miss him,” in 10.01. And then the Mark inspiring the whole “For Dean” secret conspiracy cure the mark club toward the end of s10.

Under the influence of the attack dog spell, Cas finally relented and turned himself over to the other angels seeking their help, expecting he’d be punished for his “crimes.” He’d resigned himself, only to learn that they’d only wanted him dead, and fled back to the Winchesters because they were literally his last resort. Cue the exploration of Cas’s depression and regret and feelings of self-worth and AAAAAANGST, which leads to Dean having a lot of his misconceptions about Cas blown apart…

That that one about angels not being able to understand humanity, and how it sort of destroys them when they try…

… um okay I confess I sort of got lost down a million tangents. Sorry.*

*is not actually sorry

  

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [longing in technicolor](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/longing-in-technicolor) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [please stand by mittens has temporarily shut down due to feels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/please-stand-by-mittens-has-temporarily-shut-down-due-to-feels) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	31. Chapter 31

[Jan 8, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155581719415/sunshine-anon-the-line-about-sugarsweetness-was)

19 notes

**Anonymous asked: (sunshine anon) The line about sugar/sweetness was said in a season 6 episode (Exile on Main Street, I think?). It wasn't actually Azazel, i think it was Dean dreaming/hallucinating or someone else appearing to him as Azazel. I just said Azazel to be lazy and for shorthand lol. But "Azazel" made a comment about having to come back because God kept bringing "your pal Cas back" and Dean needs "a little spice to go with all that sugar." Just thought it was an interesting choice of words.**

OHHHHH! Right! Hallucination Azazel!

Sorry…My current rewatch is at 2.22, so I just watched Azazel bite it. >.>

Even worse, I spent half a day mentally comparing 2.20 to 6.01, and STILL forgot about the Azazel hallucination. It was late, I was tired.

I have no excuse. :P

Azazel’s speech to Dean:

> **Azazel:**  Yeah, kiddo. The big daddy brought your pal Cas back, right? So why not me? Add a little spice to all that – that sugar. Really? After all we’ve been through together? You know, you got a great little life here. Pretty Lady – real understanding. Hell of a kid. And how do you keep your lawn so green? I mean, come on, Dean. You never been what I’d call brainy, but did you really think you were gonna get to keep all of this? You had to know that we were coming for you sometime, pal. You can’t outrun your past.

Which is interesting to me mostly for that last line…

“You can’t outrun your past” became the tagline for s11, and s12 in so many ways has been a retelling of the major events of s6, in a really inside out sort of way. While s6 started off in domesticity, as close to Dean ever got to a normal life, it ended up dealing with a threat of a second apocalypse, a resurgence of the supernatural in their world, and finally Cas taking on the souls of Purgatory and becoming a sort of god…

At the beginning of s12, we sort of began from the end of that– Dean having peacefully settled a rift between God and the Darkness, only to find him back at the VERY beginning, with Mary returned to him. More than “you can’t outrun your past,” it’s the cosmic do-over reset button.

That life Dean was trying to have between 5.22 and 6.01 with Lisa wasn’t really HIS life, even if Mary had lived the first time around. Mary wasn’t the person he’d always imagined her to be, and her idea of an apple pie life that he’d always held to the highest standard of what he should want and strive for (even if he felt he could never have it himself, as is proved in early s6) turned out to be store bought. :P

And he’s maybe beginning to realize that if you can’t make your own white picket fence, store bought is fine.

It’s not about some ideal of perfection that he’d held Mary to in his imagination, as a polar opposite from the life he’d grown up with hunting, but what would ultimately make HIM, PERSONALLY, HAPPY, given his own choices.

And THAT’S what makes Azazel’s speech here interesting to me now. As far as we know, Dean’s not even SEEN Cas in about a year. Yet this is the first thing Dean’s OWN HALLUCINATION chooses to throw at him?

(Makes me think these were some of those “bastard offshoot” djinn from 8.20 who fed on fear… and then Sam questions him on what he saw in the next scene and tells Dean he’s been “poisoned.”)

After recovering from the djinn poison and finding out that both he AND Sam are alive, his next question is about Cas:

> **Dean** : Well, was it God, or – or – or Cas? I mean, does Cas know anything about it?

So clearly he has Cas on the brain. He’s disappointed when Sam tells him that Cas hasn’t been answering his prayers for the last year, and frankly Dean’s probably just been trying NOT to pray to Cas after the way everything ended and he just flapped off without even a proper goodbye…

And Just as Dean was about to probably call Cas down for a little chat, the truth about Sam punches Dean in the face so hard he never gets around to it, because SAM HAS BEEN BACK FOR A YEAR?! AND NEVER EVEN BOTHERED TO POP OVER FOR A VISIT?! OR SEND A TEXT?! MAYBE A “I GOT OUT OUT HELL FREE!” POSTCARD?!

And then he’s so derailed from that realization, and the action of the rest of the episode, that he never gets back around to worrying about why Cas hasn’t been answering prayers lately until much later… like episode 6.03…

  

 

[spn 6.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.01) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [*flings self into the sunshine*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Aflings-self-into-the-sunshine%2A) [*or the sugar bowl or whatever :P*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Aor-the-sugar-bowl-or-whatever-%3AP%2A) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [s12 as s6 redux](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-as-s6-redux) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	32. Chapter 32

[Jan 8, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155586272895/do-you-think-dean-and-cas-realize-theyre-in-love)

74 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think Dean and Cas realize they're in love with each other? I know it used to be an obstacle, but i honestly think we're waaayy past that and now i believe they've just repressed it and have convinced themselves it can't happen, he doesn't feel the same, hunters don't get good ending, etc. I think Cas's biggest issue is the "where do i belong? who am i?" thing, and Dean's is realizing that he can have the "apple pie, happy life" he desires, just in a non-traditional, different way.**

Hi there! And yeah, I think they’ve each realized it to a certain extent. But neither of them has any idea what to do with this information. Let’s make a listicle, shall we?

(I’m on a listicle kick since the last meta challenge)

  * neither of these dopes thinks they deserve nice things
  * compounding that belief is the fact that Bad Things keep happening that keeps them from thinking they’ll ever be able to address those feelings anyway
  * (i mean really the world seems to try and end itself like every other year and the rest of the time they’re just trying to keep up)
  * Cas has the whole “who am I and where do I belong” thing going on
  * but he ALSO is still burdened by guilt for ~all that stuff he’s done and doesn’t feel like he deserves anything good
  * Dean may have put two and two together recently (about the whole “settling down with a hunter” thing) but he has no evidence to suggest that CAS would maybe want that same thing
  * Because even without his wings Cas is still flapping off to do his own thing
  * And yeah Dean’s WAAAAAY more “in the loop” on what Cas has been doing than he was back in s6, because it’s clear they’re sort of working together on the same problem
  * but they’re not working together-together, you know?
  * as usual, a whole heck of a lot of this comes down to miscommunication, borne partly out of feelings of guilt and shame, a lack of self worth on both sides, but also fear (of being vulnerable and potentially rejected once and for all… on both sides)



okay i’d keep going but I need to take a break and walk around aimlessly for a few minutes and ponder my life choices

  

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [*incoherent wailing*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Aincoherent-wailing%2A) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	33. Chapter 33

#  [I need to hold my own beer for Round Three (or maybe just head straight for the whiskey)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155651904070/i-need-to-hold-my-own-beer-for-round-three-or)

[Jan 9, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155651904070/i-need-to-hold-my-own-beer-for-round-three-or)

55 notes

Round Three of the [Great Meta Scavenger Hunt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155585938760/the-great-meta-scavenger-hunt-round-3-50-points), aka the Hold My Beer Meta Challenge, aka (this week) The WTF Superwiki What Did I Ever Do To You SoulCrushathon.

This week’s challenge called for us to use the Random Page link on the Superwiki to let it choose two random things for us to somehow tie together. Because I’ve apparently offended the gods, these were my pages:

[http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=7.01_Meet_the_New_Boss](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D7.01_Meet_the_New_Boss&t=MDQzYzU1YzliMGYwNzc2MDAyYjM3YzI0ZjkyYTIwZTA1YTk3ZThlNyx1cTZxU1ZiWA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F155651904070%2Fi-need-to-hold-my-own-beer-for-round-three-or&m=1)

[http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=9.10_Road_Trip_(transcript)](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D9.10_Road_Trip_%28transcript%29&t=ZGI4ZjY0NWJmZTU0ODc0ODVhOTEyMDFjNzFmZDYxMTMyMGY0YzBiYSx1cTZxU1ZiWA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F155651904070%2Fi-need-to-hold-my-own-beer-for-round-three-or&m=1)

Really? REALLY?!

This gif sums up the rest of my thoughts on these two episodes:

Because 7.01 and 9.10 offer horrifyingly similar situations for Cas, and then Dean. I’ve been trying to think of the least personally traumatizing way to structure this comparison, so I’m just gonna go for the rip-the-band-aid-off bullet-pointed list:

1\. Both episodes deal with HUGE consequences of poor personal choices:

> 7.01: Cas cuts a swath of destruction on earth and in heaven as Godstiel, driving Dean to summon Death to kill Cas in a last-ditch attempt to stop him from destroying the world.
> 
> 9.10: Gadreel cuts a swath of destruction on earth in the name of Metatron (who’d already cut a swath of destruction through heaven), and Dean summons Cas (and Crowley!) to help save Sam.

2\. Both episodes involve Dean and Cas expressing regret to one another for their choices, wishing they’d listened to the other sooner.

> 7.01: See above gif of Cas after he returned the souls to Purgatory, followed by Dean looking relieved and grateful that they’d even get that chance.
> 
> 9.10: When Cas shows up at the bunker, all graced up again and no longer human, Dean finally apologizes for kicking him out back in 9.03, and explains why he did. Also see the “[less dumb, less ass](http://canonspngifs.tumblr.com/post/153722361282)” conversation.

3\. Both episodes involve going to some pretty spectacular lengths to try and make amends for their past mistakes.

> 7.01: Dean summons Death, who MOVES THE FREAKING MOON to make opening the purgatory portal possible.
> 
> 9.10: Cas removes Sam’s antipossession tattoo (STILL FREAKING PISSED WE HAVEN’T CONFIRMED HE’S GOTTEN ANOTHER ONE YET DAMMIT) so Crowley can sneak into Sam’s brain and get him to kick Gadreel out. Epic battle ensues in the bunker library in Sam’s brain.

4\. Forgiveness is expressed between Dean and Cas, but Sam is not so easily swayed…

> 7.01: See that gif of Cas again, of Dean freaking out when he thinks Cas has died, and his relief that Cas is okay. He intends to leave there WITH Cas. Things are going to be okay! >.> But Sam? He’s all loopy for Satan at the moment, staring at a wall in a broom closet having a conversation with himself. It’ll take some time before he feels forgiving, with pretty good reason.
> 
> 9.10: You did it for the right reasons… (like that matters)

5\. Even after all of that, Things Are Profoundly Not Okay.

> 7.01: Cas: RUN!   
> Too late… Cas is – he’s gone. He’s dead. We run the show now. Ah. Oh, this is going to be so much fun.
> 
> 9.10: Dean: “Come on, man. Can’t you see? I’m… I’m poison, Sam. People get close to me, they get killed…or worse. You know, I tell myself that I-I – I help more people than I hurt. And I tell myself that I’m – I’m doing it all for the right reasons, and I – I believe that. But I can’t – I won’t… Drag anybody through the muck with me. Not anymore.”  
> And he runs…

6\. Basically all this inability to forgive THEMSELVES leads to these horrible consequences that essentially amount to a Death of Self for each of them…

> 7.01: (or 7.02, but it’s a direct consequence of 7.01): Cas gooifies himself in a reservoir and only his coat apparently survives. We don’t see him again for 16 episodes.
> 
> 9.10: (or 9.11, but really, it’s a direct consequence of 9.10): Dean gooifies himself… wait… no. He’s lured in by Crowley who leads him to Cain, and Dean takes on the Mark of Cain. He’s not really himself again until 10.23. And even after that he’s still afraid he could succumb to the influence of the Darkness for most of the rest of s11.

The worst bit is that part of the reason Cas was so eager to help Dean find Sam in 9.10 is that he’s STILL trying to redeem himself to Dean (even now). And really, Dean’s still trying his best to do the same. But if they’d both just open their eyes, they’d see the other doesn’t bear any grudges. They understand each other, but neither one of these frustrating idiots seems to understand himself.

Wasn’t that a delightful ride? I could’ve gone on and on here, but I’m sure this is enough for everyone to get started Having Feelings about these two episodes taken in conjunction. Frankly I’m impressed I got this much down on the page before I invoked the Exploding Elmo gif and tapped out.

I am very sorry I had to do this to everyone. It was in the rules. Blame the Superwiki Random Page button.

  

 

[the great meta scavenger hunt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-great-meta-scavenger-hunt) [aka the Hold My Beer meta challenge](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/aka-the-Hold-My-Beer-meta-challenge) [round three ding ding ding!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/round-three-ding-ding-ding%21) [spn 7.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.01) [spn 9.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.10) [like seriously go fuck yourself superwiki random page button](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/like-seriously-go-fuck-yourself-superwiki-random-page-button) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words)


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> with commentary from postmodernmulticoloredcloak and torenhoog-mijlenbreed.

[Jan 10, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155677538410/postmodernmulticoloredcloak)

172 notes

[postmodernmulticoloredcloak](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/155673342757/torenhoog-mijlenbreed):

> [torenhoog-mijlenbreed](https://torenhoog-mijlenbreed.tumblr.com/post/155672713273/postmodernmulticoloredcloak):
>
>> [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/155671101042/torenhoog-mijlenbreed):
>>
>>> [torenhoog-mijlenbreed](https://torenhoog-mijlenbreed.tumblr.com/post/155670382058/postmodernmulticoloredcloak-mittensmorgul):
>>>
>>>> [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/155667246657/mittensmorgul-postmodernmulticoloredcloak):
>>>>
>>>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155643669460/postmodernmulticoloredcloak-mittensmorgul-so):
>>>>>
>>>>>> [postmodernmulticoloredcloak](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/155633949287/mittensmorgul-so-im-rewatching-302-why-do):
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155632129170/so-im-rewatching-302-why-do-so-many-of-my):
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> So I’m rewatching 3.02…
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> (why do so many of my posts start out “So I’m rewatching…”? Never mind. I have a point, and it’s not this)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I’m thinking of all the supernatural things that Dean has dealt with in association to Lisa and Ben, and noticed that all of them involve loss of identity, wish fulfillment, and impossible fantasy.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 3.02: Changelings. Children replaced with monster impostors that murder their fathers and slowly drain the life from their mothers. There was something toxic hidden underneath all that pleasant, suburban, white picket fence normality.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 3.10: African Dream Root. Lisa appears in Dean’s drug-induced lucid dream. The majority of his time in the dream is spent confronting his demonic self and finally admitting to himself he doesn’t deserve to die, or to go to hell.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 5.17: After more than two years– plus more than 40 bonus years in Hell for Dean– he shows up on Lisa’s doorstep to essentially terrify the poor woman before going off to say yes to Michael. Talk about a loss of identity. The first time I saw this episode, I was like… wtf why is he bothering to warn Lisa about the apocalypse, and why would her safety be one of those conditions he’d insist on before saying yes? This one random woman and her kid? WHY?! But it makes a little bit of sense when fit into this pattern– namely wish fulfillment and impossible fantasy. Of all the people we’ve seen Dean hook up with, she was the one that came closest to having that apple pie life Dean had always thought he wanted, that was stolen from him when he was 4 years old. No wonder it occupied so much of his mental space, imagining that maybe it could’ve been his life, even if he never felt he deserved it. It was important for him to know that their lives would be spared even if his wasn’t.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 5.22: He goes to Lisa after losing or giving up everything he’s ever known for his entire life. Sam is in the cage, Cas flapped off back to Heaven, Dean walked away from Bobby and hunting in general, he puts Baby under a tarp in a garage, and does his best to forget.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 6.01: Djinn. Dean loses his grip on what’s real and what’s not. Everything about his life before suddenly intrudes on his ideal little domestic scene he’d built for himself. And Sam’s back, with a whole gaggle of relatives he’s never met before (well, aside from Samuel, who was supposed to be dead, too). There were a whole lotta layers of subterfuge going on that unfolded like the proverbial peeling onion throughout s6, from Soulless Sam to Samuel’s shady deal with Crowley, to Cas as Crowley’s silent partner.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 6.02: Shapeshifter. Infant edition. After the djinn incident, Dean and Lisa move. Essentially, Dean runs for it with her and Ben in tow. As if changing locations can separate the “normal” life he was building from the weight of his past. It doesn’t work. Basically, same problem different location (just like shapeshifters… different face, same monster). At the end of the episode, he removes himself from Lisa’s life, promising to come back when he can.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 6.03: Lisa doesn’t figure into his current life as anything more than an interrupted dream…
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 6.05: Vampire Dean. After he’s turned into a vampire, Dean returns to Lisa essentially to say goodbye. He intends to take his own life before he turns completely, but wanted to thank her one last time. It ends up going sideways, and he nearly loses control as he finally turns. His actions, unexplained to Lisa and Ben, end up burning his bridges with them.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 6.06: Truth curse. And ain’t that a kicker? After all the fantasy, what’s the final nail in the coffin of Dean’s dreams of hanging on to the slice of normality he had with Lisa and Ben is a TRUTH CURSE. He can’t maintain the facade under the harsh light of truth.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> But wait, there’s more!
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 6.14: Possessed dolls. POSSESSED DOLLS. I mean, does anything say “impossible fantasy, wish fulfillment, and loss of identity” as much as POSSESSED FREAKING DOLLS?! I don’t think so. Mid-case, Dean gets a series of calls from Ben, who essentially LIES to Dean about Lisa’s mental state, telling him she’s depressed and locked herself in her room. Dean runs to his aid, only to discover that Lisa was actually moving on from him, going on a date with someone else, and Ben was trying to “parent trap” them. It backfires spectacularly, obviously, but Lisa and Dean agree to call it quits, because she can’t stand the life he lives, and Dean doesn’t want Ben growing up to be just like him.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> And once more, basically to just rub salt in that wound, we have
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> 6.21: Demon possession leading to THE WORST THING. Lisa and Ben are kidnapped by Crowley’s minions, as hostages to get Sam and Dean to back off. Lisa’s possessed, and the demon delivers a few strategic blows against Dean before stabbing Lisa. At the hospital, Dean asks Cas to not only heal her, but to wipe all of Lisa and Ben’s memories of him. Loss of identity, taken to its most horrifying extreme. Dean still remembers everything, but now that’s all it will ever be, an impossible dream that he can never get back.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> But really, isn’t that the underlying story of his whole history with Lisa and Ben?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I am planning to write something - some day, whenever I start functioning again - about Dean’s self-awareness and this absolutely fits, Dean is aware of things and among these things there’s the fact that a life with Lisa and Ben (or Lisaandben, if we want, an entity of its own that represents a kind of existence more than the individual people their names connote, I believe in what Jensen said about Lisa) is not in the cards, it’s an impossible dream/wish/fantasy, and the only way to acquire that is to ignore his awareness, and that awareness is just inextricably tied to his identity, it’s self-awareness i.e. what he is, the only way to have that kind of life, to try to have it, is to put his identity aside.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I think life with Lisa and Ben has never been about them, and maybe it has never been about the apple pie life, either. Dean has been aware that a normal life is out of the cards for them and has always stated that he didn’t want  _normal_  - and while that kind of statements seem to fit in the lies Dean tells, I think there’s truth in that. Dean doesn’t seek normal because he’s aware that normal is not something he can’t have because of circumstances, but something he can’t have because of what he is structurally.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I think that maybe life with Lisa and Ben was about Dean’s identity and self-awareness all along. Not an attempt by Dean to change his identity, because Dean knows it’s not something he can do, but a break from his awareness. Not ignoring it, because it’s impossible, but putting it aside. I call Dean’s relationship with his self-awareness a glass wall (maybe I’ll find a better image at some point but for now it’s a glass wall), he puts his self-awareness and awareness of things in general (mostly what we could call… family-awareness) behind a wall because he needs it to survive, but it’s made of glass, he can’t avoid seeing it. He needs to put the awareness of the nature of John’s parenting behind the wall, some aspects of his identity behind the glass wall, the awareness of his relationship with normalcy behind the glass wall - it’s a survival technique, but it doesn’t take that awareness away from him. He’s aware but he keeps that aside, because he needs to.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Sometimes he takes a hammer and cracks the glass wall. I think the glass wall metaphor is fairly fitting because you can use a hammer metaphor with it and the hammer metaphor has been used by the show in Soul Survivor, which was all about this theme.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> I have no idea if what I’ve just written makes sense or is understandable, I don’t have the brain functions to re-read and understand it. Basically Dean’s life is a collection of choices of what to do with his self-awareness, and most of the time the choice is on the option that hurts the most but also keeps him afloat, because that’s the tragedy of Dean Winchester. He knows everything but needs to act like he doesn’t, because otherwise he’d sink.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> This is actually the theme I wanted to write about in the post for the round 2 of Lizzy’s meta scavenger hunt - the tragedy of Dean Winchester in the light of his self-awareness as seen through season premieres - but with whose brain am I going to write it lmao
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I’d say you could borrow my brain to write it, but I’ve got a migraine coming on so that might not be a good idea… But I’ll try to help a little since I started this…
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> We talk about Performing Dean a lot, because of this act he puts on so much of the time. But yeah, he’s painfully aware of the mask, and which bits of it are transparent, or as you say walled up behind glass.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Some parts of that mask are built from those pieces of himself, rearranged at need, and woven together from other bits he’s picked up along the way.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Strangely enough, it reminds me of one of the first episodes that dealt directly with his relationship with “normalcy.”
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> (well, after the pilot… and the Woman in White’s refrain of “I can never go home.”)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> We’ve already talked about that very first scene in 1.08, about the difference Dean and Sam’s attitudes toward the shady ways they make their money (or, at least how Dean makes their money, and I just spent OVER AN HOUR trying to find that post, but can’t seem to locate it.)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> But then there’s this exchange as they’re looking around the whole suburban development:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> **Dean:** Growin’ up in a place like this would freak me out.  
>  **Sam:**  Why?  
>  **Dean:**  Well, manicured lawns, ‘How was your day, honey?’ I’d blow my brains out.  
>  **Sam:**  There’s nothing wrong with ‘normal.’  
>  **Dean:** I’d take our family over normal any day.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Yet first chance he gets, he sneaks Baby into the garage of one of the vacant houses so he can try out the steam shower.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> SAM We’re gonna squat in an empty house?  
> DEAN I wanna try the steam shower. Come on. (SAM doesn’t move.) Come on!  
> Reluctantly, SAM pulls the car into the garage, and DEAN closes it.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> And just for the heck of it:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> **Dean:**   _(to Sam)_  You were kind of like the blonde chick in  _The Munsters_.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Dean’s idea of “normal” is just different. I’d just like him to realize that he doesn’t need to keep it all so carefully partitioned off this way.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yes the first season tackles the theme not so subtly XD
>>>>> 
>>>>> In the pilot it’s Dean who puts the ‘normal’ card on the table, when he’s like ‘so you want a normal apple pie life’ and Sam answers ‘not normal, safe’. It’s almost… like… Sam has never really considered things in the terms of ‘normal/abnormal’ while Dean has… mmm… wonder why this could be
>>>> 
>>>> @postmodernmulticoloredcloak love what you say about Dean’s self-awareness, i think you’re on to something very profound about Dean’s character. something i haven’t been able to put into words or even coherent thoughts, so i’m very much looking forward to your post about the subject. but no pressure, only when you’re feeling up to it. 
>>>> 
>>>> i always thought Dean was far more aware of things than he showed, but couldn’t  _really_ understand why he felt the need to hide this awareness. the obvious explanation of playing the part for Sam, keeping up a facade, is only part of it. what you said [here](http://postmodernmulticoloredcloak.tumblr.com/post/144140926812/f-ckyeahfutbol-benjaminlafitte-why-do-you) - “ _The most tragic thing about Dean is that he’s extremely aware and self-aware. He is aware that John was an abusive father. He is aware that the unhealthy things he does are unhealthy. He’s aware of a lot of things but he doesn’t think he’s worth healthy things so he just accepts them_ ” - offers another piece of the puzzle. 
>>>> 
>>>> but i think there’s more. i think Dean also does not  _know_  how to be open about his self-awareness, about emotions, about anything really. to him openness is equal to vulnerability, and vulnerability is something he can not have in his line of work. from the moment Mary died he learned how to hide parts of himself, because he had to, because it was the only way to keep himself (and Sam) safe. now, after so many years, hiding is something he can do automatically, while not-hiding takes effort. plus he has never learned how to not-hide. 
>>>> 
>>>> and this is where my thoughts usually taper off… but mittens “Dean’s idea of “normal” is just different” is opening new thought lines, i know what will be on my mind the rest of the day (or week). 
>>> 
>>> Thank you! I think it’s exactly as you say, openness means vulnerability and that’s something he can’t have - basically what I mean when I say that Dean needs to put his awareness aside for survival’s sake. And I mean survival in a broad sense, not just staying alive, but survival as in ‘not shattered’. The only way not to shatter under John’s abuse first and then the rest of the things he has gone through is to pretend he doesn’t know that his coping mechanisms are not healthy, that he doesn’t know that his attitude towards their father’s upbringing and so on are not healthy, that his attitude towards his relationship with is brother is not healthy, etc. He knows, but embracing that knowledge, embracing especially the vulnerability that would come from being open about it, would shatter him. Unless, of course, he has a chance to be open without shattering, which is something he mostly has with Cas. I’d say that it all started with Frank, at a time where Dean was indeed shattered and he couldn’t be afraid of shattering further because there was nothing else to break. Frank taught him to accept that brokenness and then came Charlie and of course Cas was back and they healed what needed to be healed in their relationship. Of course their relationship still needs to be perfected, so to speak, but that part that was broken, they have fixed (are we all doomed to think about that IKEA furniture post every time we mention that scene?). We also need to consider that most of Dean’s life happens with Sam being present, and his façade at this point is mostly meant for Sam. I think it’s different with Cas in the sense that Dean doesn’t present a façade for Cas, but, well, I think that Dean thinks that his feelings for Cas are clear to Cas. Just like Cas thinks that his feelings for Dean are clear to Dean. They think the other knows about their feelings for him and if the other hasn’t taken a step forward it means he doesn’t share the same feelings, I hope it makes sense with all these pronouns.
>>> 
>>> As for Dean’s idea of normal/normality/normalcy, aaah that’s my jam. *nudges health gently*
>> 
>> exactly! that’s how Dean has layered cloaking mechanisms over facades over masks over walls, to hide the fact that he’s hiding things, just to keep going.
>> 
>> interesting what you say about Frank, i never considered that before. when Dean meets Frank, Dean lacks the mental energy necessary for keeping up existing facades (hence all the drinking), let alone building a new one for dealing with Frank. i don’t know if Dean was aware of the fact that being open to Frank didn’t hurt him, better yet, made Frank help Dean more than he would have done otherwise. but you’re right, that’s when Dean’s trajectory of opening up to other people started. a process with a lot of set backs, because first Frank died, then Charlie died, and Cas always leaves, so the lesson always seems to come back to “opening up leads to tragedy”. but i see progress, so there’s hope. 
>> 
>> there’s also a link between Dean’s opening up to these people and his idea of normalcy. Dean has this idea about how ‘normal’ looks, see for example his notions about the apple pie life. he’s aware that his life and his personality are a far cry from his idea of normalcy. what he’s not aware of, is that normalcy looks different for everybody, there’s no big box labelled “normal” where everyone is supposed to fit into (although society pretends otherwise). to be able to operate in the “normal” world Dean has to pretend, has to play a part. if not, he’ll be seen for what he really is and that makes him vulnerable (it all comes back to that, doesn’t it). Frank, Charlie and Cas don’t fit in Dean’s “normal box”, so opening up to them is far less frightening than opening up to “normal” people. Sam occupies an interesting spot in all this: Dean knows that Sam isn’t part of the “normal box”, but he wishes for Sam to fit into that box, he wants Sam to lead a “normal box” life (at least in the earlier seasons). that’s one of the reasons Dean can’t open up to Sam (though it’s not the main reason, but that’s another story). 
>> 
>> i’m not sure if Dean really thinks his his feelings for Cas are clear to Cas. i’m sure Dean’s feelings are clear to himself, but i think he doesn’t want them to be clear to Cas (yet?). or maybe he wants them to be clear, but doesn’t know how to do that. i think there’s still some cloaking going on, and this, again, circles back to Dean’s issues with vulnerability. like you said, he’s afraid Cas doesn’t share these feelings.
> 
> Yep! Dean’s attempt to have something with Lisa and Ben failed because that’s not a kind of ‘normal’ that fits his life - or him, for that matter. His kind of normal isn’t a white fence little house in the suburbs (that kind of stuff does creep him out after all, it’s not a complete lie, but hey you don’t need to be a messed up broken men from literally hell to be kinda creeped out by the suburb thing). His normal is bickering with Frank, LARPing with Charlie, eating a burger with Cas (let’s play a game: what do these people have in common? oh wait). Those are his kind of people, the people he belongs with. (Frank, Charlie and Cas also all have something in common with Ash, the original person Dean really clicked with, who was just the brand of not-normal Dean is into and also who not coincidentally was paralleled to Jo who had an  _explicit_  normal-vs-freak arc.)
> 
> As for their feelings, I think Dean thinks Cas knows - after all Dean has told him  _I need you_  nice and clear. And Cas went away. Cas thinks Dean knows - how more clear can it get after all,  _you gave up an army for one guy_ , just one of the million instances where Cas put Dean first… I think they’re both convinced that the other has just acknowledged their feelings and that’s it, to put it simply. It’s, well, more complicated, since Dean’s a human and Cas is an angel but kind of but yes but not really? Oh dear.

Wow, y’all have added on to this! :P

But yeah, I think Dean and Cas are playing a really complex game of Feelings Hide and Seek. It’s terribly frustrating. Like a shell game where they’re both constantly shifting things around for self-defense, and they keep choosing to look under the wrong cup and missing the pea.

(this is actually a plot device I’ve used in several fics, most recently ([yes I’m quoting my own fanfic to make a meta point](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fworks%2F9205046&t=OTEwOTZkNWVkNzg0ZDk1YTBlNDQwZDA5ZjY1OGM5ZmIxYWU5NzU3MyxyTGtYdXU3bA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F155677538410%2Fpostmodernmulticoloredcloak&m=1)…) Dean says to Cas: “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you I need you, that you’re family, before it sinks in.” Because Dean really does think he’s made this point clear. He also thinks that Cas has  _explicitly rejected_  his feelings (in Purgatory, in 8.17, in 8.23, right on down the line to 12.03 when he chose to hunt with Crowley instead of Dean… which explains Dean’s current grumpiness with Cas and Crowley both).

Dean  _does not understand_  that Cas DOES NOT UNDERSTAND. They each think they’re so freaking obvious, but between Dean’s complex shifting Performing Dean Mask, and Cas’s struggle to express himself in human terms at all, compounded by the End of the World level of problems they’ve been busy trying to deal with, it makes for so many levels of miscommunication and misunderstanding.

(basically I just need them both to express themselves in words that absolutely can’t be misinterpreted. JUST SAY IT! UGH!) :

 

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words)


	35. Chapter 35

[Jan 10, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155696679585/i-could-be-wrong-so-please-correct-me-if-so-but)

16 notes

**Anonymous asked: I could be wrong so please correct me if so, but has anyone noticed how Dean doesn't really flirt with anyone in front of Cas? And/or rather, their scenes are not written in a way that would really allow for it. And then there's Dean not wanting Cas to see his porn. He doesn't think twice about flirting in front of anyone else, or letting them know he watches porn. But he's so *different* with Cas. Lol almost like the way Danny is when he was alone with Sandy in Grease:P**

Hah! Yeah. He had the same reaction to Sam spilling his Japanese anime erotica habit to Jody… but for decidedly different reasons.

Jody’s become the Mom Friend. She has counseled Dean about parent/child stuff. She’s officially crossed over into “mother figure” role in his head.

But he doesn’t see Cas as a mother figure. Or a father figure. And he flirts openly in front of Sam, makes jokes about porn in front of Sam, talks about his conquests with bravado in front of Sam. So if that’s how Dean treats someone he considers a brother, then why does he act differently in front of Cas?

In the distant past he may have been more like that around Cas, but over the years something has definitely shifted. He doesn’t talk about going out to bars to get some action in front of Cas anymore. He doesn’t make references to past hookups in front of Cas anymore. 

Gah, I wrote something up about this a while back… hang on…

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149328457465/on-deans-drinking-and-cas-making-him-want-to-be-a>*

HAHA! FOUND IT! (suddenly my taglist script has decided to start working again, and I’m actually able to find things again! YAY!)

That post pretty much sums up the evolution of this phenomenon. :D

  

 

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

*the linked post:

 

Aug 22, 2016

159 notes

**Anonymous asked: On dean's drinking and cas making him want to be a better person: also, remember how dean quickly closed his laptop that time he had porn open and cas saw? It's almost as if dean doesn't want cas to think less of him, or see his less desirable habits? For some reason lol gee I wonder:P**

[k-vichan](http://k-vichan.tumblr.com/post/149321200414/on-deans-drinking-and-cas-making-him-want-to-be-a):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149307622305/on-deans-drinking-and-cas-making-him-want-to-be-a):
>
>> [cloudatlascas](http://cloudatlascas.tumblr.com/post/149307272189/on-deans-drinking-and-cas-making-him-want-to-be-a):
>>
>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149306630020/on-deans-drinking-and-cas-making-him-want-to-be-a):
>>>
>>>> [k-vichan](http://k-vichan.tumblr.com/post/149306027649/on-deans-drinking-and-cas-making-him-want-to-be-a):
>>>>
>>>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149305080055/on-deans-drinking-and-cas-making-him-want-to-be-a):
>>>>>
>>>>>> Yeah. And when God Himself kind of gives Dean a little ribbing over the quantity of porn on his computer, implying that even he’s never seen so much in one sitting, Dean’s somehow not personally embarrassed the same way. He has an “ick” reaction, in typical Dean Germophobe Winchester fashion, and closes the laptop with the tiniest portion of a single fingertip that he can manage.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> He probably sprayed the whole thing down with Lysol the second Chuck left the room.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> But Cas? Yeah, Cas has always been different. Granted there was that time he bought him a beer and tried to hook him up with a hooker, but after that?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I mean, he sort of distanced himself while Cas drank with Ellen and Jo in 5.10, and then offered Cas a remedy for his hangover in 5.17 (after expressing shock and disappointment that Cas had been on a bender, but Dean was there to help him).
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Other than that? Yeah. Dean might keep drinking in his presence, but for Cas’s sake? When Dean gives up the Amara mission largely to Sam and shifts his personal focus to saving Cas? Dean drops the alcohol and even for the most part the coffee… the Dark Roast… as if abstaining (rather than his usual research-induced self-medicating diet of liquor and beer) might be what leads him to Cas.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yesssss! That thing with Dean hiding his porn from Cas was THE cementing moment for me… cuz when has Dean ever hid his porn from ANYONE? Even multiple times in surrounding episodes, Dean is unabashed in appreciating his vintage porn, or connecting with Charlie on liking the same porn star.
>>>>> 
>>>>> That was when I sat up and said “holy shit” on the Dean/Cas stuff. It wasn’t just fanservice anymore (which is still how I view seasons 5 and 6, sorry… but I also watched those seasons live so I likely have a different perspective). That little laptop slam made it very real for me, because Dean was DIFFERENT with Cas than he was with everyone else.
>>>>> 
>>>>> And… I really hated Dean telling Cas to down the whole bottle of pills in 5.17 because it gave me serious Endverse Cas vibes (and cuz I was either in the process of writing or had just finished a seriously fucked 5.04 fic so that would was definitely embedded in my brain)… I have to remind myself that was right before Dean’s lowest point and him running off to say “yes” to Michael…
>>>> 
>>>> Yeah, and Dean giving him the whole bottle of aspirin was largely in response to the fact that it took drinking “a liquor store” to even make Cas drunk in the first place. Two aspirin likely wasn’t going to put a dent in a Hangover of the Lord.
>>>> 
>>>> But with Cas and the laptop in 8.10, Dean doesn’t just slam it shut, after he opens it again he  _covers the screen with his hand_ , as if Cas hadn’t already seen everything on it, while he pokes at the keyboard until the offending site has disappeared and they can get down to researching the case.
>>>> 
>>>> Sure, Dean. He saw nothing.
>>> 
>>> Also it’s not like Cas is an innocent who has never seen porn before! He watched the babysitter video remember? All very suspicious.
>> 
>> OH MY GOD yes. And Dean was pretty flippant about it then, with the “Great, now he’s got a boner” line and everything… What soured the pizza man video experience for him, I wonder?
>> 
>> Sam was in the room with them, first of all. Not like Dean could get all squirmy about porn with Sam in the room to wonder what the heck’s up with him…
>> 
>> And then Cas took his pizza man knowledge and turned right around and practiced it on Meg.
>> 
>> But here, with just the two of them there, Cas having come to him for help with a case, while Dean’s been on his own for what we can tell is probably far too long…
>> 
>> Oh, and both episodes were written by Jenny Klein.
> 
> Aaaand now I’m side-eye squinting at when Cas comes across Dean’s porn in 11.03 and he can’t figure out how to close it. “What could ‘Fortune Nookie’ be?” 99% sure it’s the exact same laptop that Chuck uses in 11.21 and points out “I’ve never seen so much porn.” (The one that [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) pointed out that Dean is closing with his dainty finger.)
> 
> Both… Bucklemming episodes.
> 
> And THIS all works into my headcanon that Cas is better than Chuck, and therefore better for Dean than God is. In other words, my brain is just as sacrilegious as the writers. :P

Source: [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/149305080055/on-deans-drinking-and-cas-making-him-want-to-be-a)

Reblogged from [k-vichan](https://k-vichan.tumblr.com/post/149321200414/on-deans-drinking-and-cas-making-him-want-to-be-a)

  

 

[spn 8.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.10) [spn 6.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.10) [spn 11.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.03) [spn 11.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.21) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [because the writers often tend to go back to specific points they made in their own past episodes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-the-writers-often-tend-to-go-back-to-specific-points-they-made-in-their-own-past-episodes) [and it's fun to find these little bits of continuity... and then wail about them :D](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-it%27s-fun-to-find-these-little-bits-of-continuity...-and-then-wail-about-them-%3AD) [i think even chuck knows that cas is better than him :)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-think-even-chuck-knows-that-cas-is-better-than-him-%3A%29)


	36. Chapter 36

[Jan 10, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155701018510/this-is-going-to-sound-odd-but-putting-the)

14 notes

**Anonymous asked: This is going to sound odd, but putting the drowley aside for a moment, i 100% believe Crowley still also has a thing for Cas left over from when Crowley was clearly really into him in S6. Call me crazy, just an observation!**

Hi there! And that doesn’t sound odd. I mean, I think everything between Cas and Crowley has always been extremely one-sided. Crowley had played his flirtatious games with Cas, but Cas couldn’t have been less interested…

(where’s that “it’s canon that cas is the hottest character on spn” post when you need it?)

In 6.20 Crowley tells Cas he’s got “what they call sex appeal.” And Cas just replies, “Thank you. Get to the point.”

I think this probably frustrated Crowley to no end. :D

But I don’t think Crowley ever really had any  _real_  thing going for Cas. Not in that way, at least. More in the way that Cas could help him with his own power grab. He was seducing Cas into a business transaction. If it happened to come dressed up with a lot of flattery and what could be read as flirtation, well… that’s just how Crowley rolls, you know?

I don’t think he’s harboring some deep feeling for Cas (at least not the way he did for Dean for like… the last two years…), but right now I think Crowley’s enjoying playing up his renewed partnership with Cas because it’s an easy way to needle Dean.

Because Cas is pretty much doing the same. Crowley gets that they’re both using him this way, but he’s too amused watching Dean and Cas tap dance around each other to care.

  

 

[crowley](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/crowley) [worst ship on the show](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/worst-ship-on-the-show) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	37. Chapter 37

[Jan 19, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156090149820/a-week-i-think-in-the-next-episode-we-will-see)

57 notes

**[m-sherezade](https://m-sherezade.tumblr.com/) asked: A week! I think in the next episode, we will see the difference between concern of Mary and Castiel. Mary is the mother but Castiel is Family since a long time. She loves them very much but Castiel feel the instinct to protect and do everything for them. Castiel needs them. I do not want to play down the importance of Mary but Hopefully it is noticed the difference. In The promo, Mary seems to comfort him. S.**

AAAHHH! PARALLELS! MIRRORS! This is the sort of stuff I live for. :D

Which means I probably have Too Many Thoughts on the subject to reply in a coherent and linear fashion. Instead, please have 9 seemingly divergent tangents that all speak to this theme.

Going back to 12.03, we had Mary and Cas both questioning whether or not they truly belonged here, with “here” meaning multiple things, even. Here at the bunker. Here with the Winchester Family. Here in this time and place. Here on earth as a human being/hunter/etc. Both Mary and Cas believe the other DOES belong (Cas tells her directly in those exact words, in fact, but Mary implies it by asking how long it took before Cas felt like he belonged there). Their narratives are definitely linked over this exact theme. We can’t NOT compare them.

They both feel like “outsiders” but for drastically different reasons. And they’re each blind to why the other would even feel that way about themselves. So we’ve been invited to compare their very different perspectives on the identical situation. Which is the gateway comparison to looking at EVERYTHING they go through individually and considering how their observations and experiences and opinions inform how we’re reading the other.

Much the same way the back half of s11 showed us two very different responses via Sam and Dean’s WILDLY different responses to Cas having said yes to Lucifer, they’ve taken great care to repeatedly reinforce the comparisons between Cas and Mary, right from the beginning of s12.

They both leave Dean in 12.03, in such a narratively similar fashion that the two scenes literally bookend the episode. Cas leaves in the opening with the goal to hunt down Lucifer (i.e. his major source of current guilt and regret), while Mary leaves in the closing with the goal to understand her place here now and come to terms with everything she’s “lost” (i.e. her major source of current guilt and regret).

We’ve seen Cas and Mary BOTH via how they’re continuing to communicate with Dean over the next few episodes. Cas and Mary both keep in touch with him via phone (calling, texting, even playing Words with Friends). Yet… Dean’s reaction to each of them has been distinctly different.

Essentially what I’m saying is that we’re already primed to play Spot The Difference with Cas and Mary, because we’ve been watching DEAN play that game all season.

We’ve watched Dean relate to Mary sort-of in a son-to-mother way, but they’ve both struggled with that definition of their relationship. Dean might still call her Mom, but in a lot of ways he seems to be developing a much healthier sibling sort of dynamic with her. Considering the extremely unnatural situation they’ve found themselves in, it actually seems to make far more sense for them to adjust the way they relate to one another in this way. Dean shouldn’t have to revert back to his 4-year-old self and Mary shouldn’t treat him the same as she’d treat her little boy. But also, Dean’s technically older than Mary now. It would be equally weird if he suddenly began treating her as a matronly matriarch figure. They’ve both been struggling to find the right balance.

Like Dean’s heartbreaking text wondering if it was weird to keep calling her mom… They’re talking. They’re working it out. Feeling out what’s comfortable and finding their footing here. (Family, but not parent/child, because it’s just… too  _weird_ and sort of creepy to force that dynamic).

(To split off on yet another tangent, I think this is also a great parallel for the growth we’ve seen in how Dean relates to Sam… like he’s been gradually letting go of his more “parental” feelings as they work through their codependency issues, and gradually beginning to see Sam in this same way. Like Dean dealing with his issues with Mary have given him some new insight into Sam’s perspective in the parent/child part of the codependency, and I hope Sam gets the opportunity to explore that stuff for himself…)

Meanwhile we’re seeing Dean’s struggle to understand the connection he has with Cas, and I think a lot of the tension between them this season is SUPPOSED to be a big waving flag to get our attention.

We’ve been repeatedly asked to compare and contrast the character reactions, and then examine them for context. Dean’s been short and testy with Cas since he left, while Sam’s largely been fine with the situation. We know Sam and Cas are friends; even that they see each other as brothers-in-arms. Sam cares about Cas. That’s not in dispute here. But DEAN CLEARLY IS HAVING THIS MUCH STRONGER, VERY DIFFERENT REACTION.

The show wants us to put two and two together and ask WHY. What is different about Sam’s relationship to Cas and Dean’s relationship to Cas to create two such wildly different responses to him leaving, and to him working with Crowley.

(another minor tangent off this tangent… we’re also invited to consider this with regard to Crowley SPECIFICALLY, remembering Dean and Sam’s wildly different histories with Crowley, and applying the appropriate context as necessary… but that’s too big a tangent for this space, and there’s already been plenty written on the Cas-Dean-Crowley triangle, so back to my more tangentially relevant meanderings…)

And we’ve also seen this played out between Sam and Dean in relation to Mary. Sam has been good with Mary taking her own time to figure out where she belongs, yet he’s pushed at Dean to open up to him about it all, despite Dean coming at the whole problem from an entirely different perspective (which I’ve also talked about at great length… see everything about the pie conversation at the beginning of 12.05 for anyone interested in the subject, but again… tangent…)

So in 12.09 we’re going to see Cas and Mary finding themselves in the same position, yet coming at it from wildly different perspectives… and yet, we’re going to be offered another glimpse into mirrors here. Mirrors reflecting the notions of what family is, where they each belong, their own motivations and desires, and the lengths they’ll be willing to go to.

Neither approach is “wrong” or “more important” than the other, but will serve to make us question all this stuff ^^ about belonging, standing, and identity.

(see why s12 is such a meta goldmine?)

  

 

[m-sherezade](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/m-sherezade) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [spn 12.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.03) [spn 12.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.05) [spn s11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11) [spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09)[winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester)[mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [revenge of the subtext](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/revenge-of-the-subtext)


	38. Chapter 38

[Jan 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156130623380/if-tptb-finally-write-destiel-out-in-the-glorious)

69 notes

**Anonymous asked: If TPTB finally write Destiel out in the glorious open and we get an on screen kiss who do you think would initiate? I used to think it would have to be Dean (since Cas doesn't even assume he belongs at the bunker and with them in general), but maybe this is the one scenario where Dean would be too much of a coward??**

Well, seeing as they’ve both been tap dancing up to the line before backing up at the last second… 

*just a quick aside here to say that this metaphor, tap dancing up to the line before backing up at the last second, has given me a mental montage of all the metaphorical ways they’ve been backed up by the narrative, and it’s been highly entertaining yet equally frustrating. Imagine if you will, they tap dance RIGHT UP TO THAT LINE, but then…

  * One of those oversized novelty hooks yoinks one or both of them offstage (see Cas being pulled back to heaven, see Dean being manipulated into choosing some other emergency first, like Gadreel-in-Sam…)
  * One of them trips and falls off the edge of the stage
  * One of them twists and ankle and has to sit out the rest of the dance
  * One or both of them forget the steps and the whole routine falls apart
  * Suddenly the music stops and they stop dancing and are just left there awkwardly staring into the audience before shuffling offstage
  * AN ATTACK OF SUDDEN AND CRIPPLING STAGE FRIGHT
  * The stage collapses under their feet
  * Someone else cuts in and messes up the whole routine (side-eyeing Lucifer, Amara, really everyone here…)



I mean, as a metaphor, it’s pretty accurate. They’ve been rehearsing this number for YEARS, but they’ve never been allowed to finish the dance.*

*second aside to note that I saw lizbob answered this exact same ask right here: <http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/156118204063/if-tptb-finally-write-destiel-out-in-the-glorious> so I’m gonna try and answer differently*

How do I think it could happen? I mean, other than the millions of ways a million fanfics have already put forth for our consideration?

*third aside to note that this is exactly the thinking behind [the fanfic scavenger hunt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156056464500/the-great-fic-writer-scavenger-hunt-round-2)… that there’s an infinite number of possibilities for ANY given scenario to happen, and the joy is in exploring as many of them as possible :D)

The way things are going in canon now, I think it would have to happen after Cas made his final decision about where he truly belongs (with the Winchesters, duh). There would be serious conversations between all three of them (especially including Sam), where Cas lays out the reasons for his choice. Dean will have already told Cas (again!) that he wants him to stay, while Sam probably told Cas that it had to be his choice.

Sam would reassure Cas that they are friends. Brothers, even. And then Dean would awkwardly clarify his awkward rambling from 11.23 that yeah, Cas is definitely family, even if it’s not exactly in a brotherly way…

More awkwardness would ensue.

Feelings would be confessed. Nothing would happen immediately because everyone would be to freaking stunned that they all finally stopped dancing but they’re still on stage.

Things would go on as normal for a bit (days? weeks?), with Dean and Cas spending more time together practicing that dance. Doing the hunting/normal life stuff, but sort-of-in-a-date-kind-of-way. (it takes Sam a while to really let go of his own tangle of feelings over this development, but eventually he accepts it and starts letting them do their own thing… Maybe he starts hunting more with Eileen to give them some space… *wink wink*)

Then one night they’ve been driving for hours on the way home from a hunt, and they stop for dinner at some stupid all-night diner. They’re relieved that hunt is over because fuck Dean’s getting to old to get thrown through doors like that… but in the harsh fluorescent light and the faded pastel pseudo-50′s decor of this run-down old diner, over a couple slices of warm pecan pie, dammit it’s all so funny now.

Cas not only makes some dumb joke about Dean getting thrown back into the closet, he fucking LAUGHS at it… like, really laughs. And it just knocks Dean over. He can’t freaking believe this is his life, and suddenly the whole fucking routine plays out start to finish in his mind, like watching his whole sad life flash before his eyes, and he just leans across the table and kisses the stupid grin right off Cas’s face.

And they’re both shocked into just blinking at each other again for a second, until Cas pulls out his wallet and tosses some cash down on the table without breaking eye contact. He glances around the diner, then grabs Dean’s hand and pulls him out to the car. Because of all the places or times this could’ve happened, it’s definitely not gonna happen in some deserted diner parking lot in the middle of Nebraska.

But it happens. And it doesn’t change anything.

Well, except it changes everything. Because they deserve it. Because they’re allowed to be happy. They get what it’s like settling down with another hunter, and that it’s not ALL just about doubling the bad stuff. It’s also about doubling the good stuff.

Okay somehow this turned into fanfic. Or at least something fanfic-adjacent. :P

  

 

[spn fanfic](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-fanfic) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [because the tapdancing metaphor is just another metaphor for the same concept](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-the-tapdancing-metaphor-is-just-another-metaphor-for-the-same-concept) [accidental fanfic](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/accidental-fanfic) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	39. Chapter 39

Jan 21, 2017

36 notes

**[m-sherezade](https://m-sherezade.tumblr.com/) asked: Between the promo and the interview with Dabb. It's important to see the love professed between persons they are not blood family but they are Family. I will only say that love is different but not least. I love that Dean says "Cas is my best friend" because a friend can be a brother, confidant, ally, encompasses a lot of things. And I Iike Dabb to say "Everybody looking for their place" Because they are all important. Castiel is one of a kind and he has to find his own place in the universe.**

Yeah.

(And just for the record, Mr. Mittens is my best friend.)

(we’ve been married for almost 20 years)

(but he’s definitely my best friend)

And really, the whole “Everybody looking for their place” thing is something we’ve been flailing over FOR YEARS. ACTUAL MULTIPLE YEARS.

*note to say that I would provide ALL the quotes, but the superwiki’s been down all day, so this is literally entirely off the top of my head. All receipts can be found buried in my blog, but for the purposes of answering this in a timely fashion, *boom* you get the stuff I can remember without looking it up… :D*

*second note to say I’m putting this under a cut because damn… I wrote over 3k on the subject and whoa it’s long*

Let’s start with Dean (because really this show, for me, starts and ends with Dean)

Dean, in 10.16, with his whole confessional scene. Thinking about the things… people he wants to experience differently. Maybe even for the first time.

But this isn’t even really a new notion for Dean. At the beginning of the series we were first introduced to this cocky dude who had this whole loner/rebel thing going on… but that image got turned on its head by the end of the second episode (the third episode drowned that perception of Dean in a lake). He spent most of s2 feeling like he wasn’t even supposed to be ALIVE, let alone deserve anything more than he already had.

By s3, he’d sold his soul for Sam’s, and he was content with the trade… until near the end of the season when his time was running out and he was forced to confront his fate… (I don’t deserve it! FINALLY! at the end of 3.10 confronting the dream-demon-dean)

Resurrected in 4.01, Cas points out that Dean doesn’t believe he deserved to be saved… and he’s forced to confront this fate apparently laid on him by God– who he didn’t even  _believe_   _existed_ , and certainly didn’t care about. Heaven was conspiring against Dean to make him into their pawn, all the while he fought against that fate. At that point in the story, back during the Apocalypse, he didn’t really get much time to stop and think about what “place” he’d choose for himself, he just knew he wasn’t gonna let destiny choose for him. Back then, he was fighting for the right to choose  _at all_.

Apocalypse dusted, he trudged off to look for a white picket fence and a little peace and quiet. As far as he knew, the world wasn’t trying to end anymore, and without any sort of direction for himself, for the first time in his life he was sort of free to explore something different for himself. For reasons I’ve talked about plenty of times before, it didn’t work out for him. He tried to find a balance there, but it was too much, and suddenly he was adrift again.

He’d lost his faith again. Cas was gone, Sam was broken, and the world was definitely falling apart again. S7 stripped away everything that Dean had ever known. Forget about having choices, by the end of the season he was even running out of last-ditch refuges. Then he and Cas ended up in the last-ditch refuge to beat all other last-ditch refuges: Purgatory.

Coming back from Purgatory seemed to give Dean a new lease on life. ESPECIALLY after Cas came back… at least for a little while. Even after Cas came back to him, he still ditched him again…

(yes it was because he was being controlled by Naomi, no neither dean nor cas knew that at the time, yes it left everyone feeling terrible)

Then they discovered the Bunker. Things really began to change for him. He had a place that he felt was actually THEIRS. A solid, steady home base that grounded him in the world like nothing had since he’d been 4 years old and had a family home. It was his heritage, a part of his personal history that had been stolen from him long before he was even born. And that was HUGE for Dean.

The thing he was best at, the thing he took most pride in– his abilities as a hunter– was validated by this creepy old vault in a hillside.

Suddenly he had a home, a sense of legitimacy, a sense that he wasn’t some outcast on the fringes of society. Granted, living in a secret underground bunker still technically puts one on the fringes of society, but more in a Batman sort of way instead of in a Spiders Georg sort of way…

Right from the start, Dean had this sense of BELONGING there. He felt at home. He LIKES living there. He has privacy and comfort and his own room and a cozy robe and slippers, not to mention all the tools and resources he could ever hope to have to do the job he’s always loved (well, for the most part he’s loved it…).

But there’s always been that responsibility his father instilled in him from the moment he told him to carry Sam outside as fast as he can. His one real job, even above the hunting, has been to watch out for Sam. He still feels responsible for Sam, even though they’re both in their 30′s (and Dean’s pushing 40 now…). Is that REALLY his primary responsibility in life? I mean, of course he loves his brother, but should he forever put Sam’s needs and wishes BEFORE his own? Or, conversely, override Sam’s own wishes in service to that old “watch out for Sammy, you have to save him” mantra that John burdened him with in 2.01? That’s something he’s beginning to learn, beginning back in s11, and continuing into s12.

I think Dean realizes that hunting is where he belongs. Going back to 11.04, Sam asking him if he ever thought about settling down with someone in the life. Like, finding a romantic partner to share the life with. I.e., hunting with someone other than Sam. Implying that SAM had thought about this, too, for himself.

Conveniently, Sam meets a really lovely female hunter who he has a lot of instant chemistry with just seven episodes later (hello, Eileen!). But at the time in 11.04, Dean denies having considered it a real possibility for him. Despite having said something along those exact same lines in 10.16.

How much have I written about 11.11 and Dean’s heart-to-heart with Mildred about sunsets, and pining for someone, and… right. Okay. (there’s nearly 200 posts in that episode tag fyi. I’m not even gonna CONSIDER diving in there to pull references, or I’ll be there all night :P).

In 11.17 he gets the lesson hammered home that he can’t just throw away his own life in exchange for Sam’s. For the first time in his life, he’s confronted with the absolute fact that Sam’s life is not cosmically more important than his own. He doesn’t want Sam to suffer or die or to have to carry undue burdens on his soul (like the Mark of Cain… >.>), but that’s a reasonable thing to feel. It’s NOT reasonable to try to spend the rest of his life standing as that human shield between Sam and the rest of the world either, though, and he’s finally starting to understand that.

Then in 11.19 Dean makes a real breakthrough and FINALLY admits out loud and in front of Sam that he’s curious about what it’s like settling down with another hunter. He asks this of two men who are married to each other. Again, in front of Sam.

The s11 finale was ALL ABOUT CHUCK AND AMARA FINDING THEIR PLACE in a strange way. Not Chuck hiding out on Earth pretending to be something he’s not (a Dean mirror…), not Amara locked away somewhere like a prisoner, nor destroying all of creation in retaliation. It was all about balance, brought about by Dean Winchester.

So, that leaves us in Dean’s current situation. Mary’s suddenly alive again after all these years, Sam’s been hurt and taken by ??? and Cas was true to his word and stuck around.

Not only that, but Cas seems just as fierce and determined as Dean to get Sam back. Aah, brotherly feelings! Because THAT’S how Cas has learned (from Dean) that you take care of your brother. And really, I think that’s how Cas does see Sam. As a brother. It’s been a long time since he’s referred to Sam as the Boy with the Demon Blood, or “an abomination.” And Cas’s journey since borrowing Jimmy’s body and popping into that barn to say hi to Dean has also been about his friendship (and kinship) with Sam.

(I mean, just look at 9.11, THEY BOND OVER HOW SIMILAR THEY ARE! THEY TALK ABOUT HOW BOTH ANGELS AND WINCHESTERS CAN GROW AND CHANGE!)

I know this has largely been about Dean to this point, but when I started writing, I had no idea how much I really had to say on the subject. I was going to do a similar “this is your life” sort of segment for Sam, but It’s almost impossible to talk about Dean without pulling in relevant tidbits about Sam. So I’m gonna spend a (hopefully!) shorter amount of time talking about Sam here, specifically.

When Sam first met Cas, he was in awe of angels. Unlike Dean, he’d always had faith in a higher power. (He’d also always had Dean as a human shield against some of the worst of their young lives, which probably contributed to his ability to maintain that faith in what otherwise could’ve been a completely faith-destroying life… I mean, see Dean himself for the obvious compare/contrast here).

Sam had always felt “other.” The freak. Not even really all human. Living on the fringes of society yet wanting desperately to fit in and just be normal. He hated his life, hated hunting, hated not being normal. And then his powers kicked online and amped that feeling up to 11.

Poor Sam has spent so much of the series being the object of the supernatural that the only times he ever even tried to run away from the life he just got pulled right back in. He tried to run once during the Apocalypse, but that didn’t even last more than a few days before he was forced back in (in 5.03/5.04). The closest he got to escaping into normalcy was during early s8 while Dean was in Purgatory.

Nothing says family like the whole family being dead.

He drifted around the country aimlessly until he hit a dog.

He seemed to settle in for a brief time, but then suddenly Dean was back, reminding him that he had a duty to protect Kevin, and he’d failed. He’d never told Amelia ANYTHING about his life before he’d met her. Well, nothing REAL, anyway. Not the truth. Nothing about hunting or monsters or anything. So when his history finally caught up with him, his choice was an either/or. He couldn’t have both (not even like Dean had tried to do with Lisa, since she did know the truth about him. Sam wouldn’t burden Amelia with it, despite having demanded as his dying wish that Dean burden Lisa with it all…)

So Sam was adrift again, even though he had Dean by his side. Even though he had the bunker as a home base. It WASN’T a proper home by his standards. It wasn’t enough.

Enter the trials, enter Gadreel, enter the fight against the Mark, enter the Darkness… and finally Enter God.

(also enter Dean spending a month or so pining away and driving himself bonkers trying to save Cas from Lucifer)

And then… God couldn’t just snap his fingers and make this better. In fact, God was kind of a jerk. Or, at least, God was really freaking limited in his own ability to change. That’s one of the drawbacks of being absolute.

Free will is not included in the kit.

But Sam? Sam’s got it. And he chooses to exercise it LIKE A BOSS. SAM FUCKING WINCHESTER. CAN I GET AN AMEN!

Sam’s chosen all through s12 to stand up and defend what he believes in. Even in 12.01/12.02 when he felt like he had really nothing left to lose (with Dean gone, Cas banished, the Darkness vanquished), he still didn’t give in to his captors. He kept fighting for himself.

Because he does see the bunker as his home now. He’s also got this weird second chance to get to know his mother in a blank slate sort of way. He’s accepted her terms for how their relationship will proceed, because getting to know her AT ALL had never even been a possibility for him.

And we know he’s spent some time thinking about his future (his little retirement brochure and his box of memories). He’s spent time wondering what it might be like settling down with a hunter. He’s begun archiving the MoL records to make them accessible. He’s got a way to keep one foot in hunting and still have a relatively settled life. And he finally got Lucifer locked back up in the cage. He’s got hope for the future.

(well, he did until they got arrested by the secret service and tossed into some sort of black site)

Now on to Cas.

Castiel, Angel of the Lord. Arguably the most fascinating character progression in the history of television. He began as a completely alien being who was just rebellious enough and empathetic enough and curious enough to be swayed by humanity. Yes, he had a history of defying orders going back millennia, but he’s also been labeled as having “too much heart.” What a wonderful problem for an angel to have.

From wrathful soldier of heaven to homeless human struggling to survive, he’s experienced so much. And he’s been open to every last experience. He’s let humanity touch him and change him, all the while fighting to do the right thing for Heaven and Earth. He’s made some catastrophic mistakes along the way, and the weight of that guilt has affected him even more.

I saw a post earlier today about the line from the See Evil promo, where Dean says Cas is his best friend. Below that is an image of the “Friends to Lovers” tag from AO3. Because yeah, I mean, isn’t that the next logical step here? Their entire story has been a Strangers to Associates to Enemies to Associates to Friends to Associates to Enemies to Associates to Friends to whateverthefuck they were in Purgatory to Friends to Close Really Close Friends to Awkwardly Asking Out And Getting Rejected But Staying Heartbroken Friends to Bitter Exes to Friends to Brothers to “everyone you love will be long dead except for me” to ~Brothers~ to Old Married People Having A Spat Over How Much Cas Travels For Work With Dean’s Ex.

It’s ridiculous.

*glances up at this ridiculous post trying to determine if I’ve addressed your question even a little bit and realizes this is gonna have to go under a cut. WTF, self?*

Cas’s ENTIRE HISTORY ON THE SERIES, ALL OF IT, HAS BEEN A JOURNEY OF “FINDING HIS PLACE.”

I just watched 4.20 yesterday. That’s where I am in my current rewatch. He’s been struggling with what’s right, with what he should do, with where he should entrust his loyalty. Heaven’s orders don’t feel right. There’s something fishy going on up there, and his loyalty was wavering. After getting pulled back to Boot Camp for reprogramming, he tells Dean that he serves Heaven, not humanity, and CERTAINLY not Dean…

Well, it only takes him two more episodes to turn that around and tear up the script. For Dean.

THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN CAS’S JOURNEY.

As much as Sam has been manipulated by the universe, Cas has too. (remember what I said about Sam and Cas in 9.11? Yeah, that.)

Well as much as Sam and Cas have in common, the relationship between Cas and Dean has NEVER looked like that. There’s always been a distinct difference between how Cas and Sam relate to one another, and how Cas and Dean relate to one another.

But Dean being Dean, who doesn’t feel like he deserved to be saved, doesn’t have any clue what to do with an Angel of the Lord who put his faith in Dean. And Cas doesn’t have any clue what to do with this man who has called him brother and best friend, both of which taste a little bit like a lie, or at least not entirely like the truth.

(see previous comment about Old Married Couple, yet with neither of them realizing it)

I realized a few minutes ago that I’ve already written something about Cas’s entire journey (as it stood over the summer hiatus after s11), and how he’s always been headed toward this huge choice: Do you want to live as an angel, or as a man? I’d go digging for it, but *scrolls up through this entirely too long already post* I think I’ve spent enough time on this.

Cas has struggled with these HUGE questions. He’s tried to do what was right. He’s tried to reconcile his duty to heaven with the original mission God set for the angels to protect humanity. He’s met God himself and seen the entire story of creation resolve itself. And now? Now where does he belong? His story’s been paralleled to Mary’s this season. Mary who feels out of place and time and disconnected from the world, yet is tied to it by blood and family and humanity. Cas feels out of place because of WHAT he is, because he’s not human or blood (even if he is family… or whatever he reads into Dean’s assertions that he has a place with them, in their home, with the Winchesters).

It’s all about family, what makes family, and finding out how they all fit into each others’ lives. If given the choice, what would each of them decide to do?

TL/DR? Basically my point is this is nothing new. This has always been the story, no matter what the “bigger problems” they’ve faced over the years have been. It’s just become a much more tangible and dynamic part of the story in the last season or so. Meaning it’s become more important, if anything. For Dean, for Sam, and for Cas.

Take any of those three out of the story, and the whole structure collapses. They’re all equally important here. I don’t think anyone who says different has a leg to stand on. I don’t know what the fuck show they’re watching, but it’s definitely not Supernatural.

Not sure if I even really addressed the original message here, but I’ve been typing this for a couple of hours now, so I guess I’ve officially typed myself out. :P

  

 

[m-sherezade](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/m-sherezade) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [oh dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-dean) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [too many episodes to tag them all](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/too-many-episodes-to-tag-them-all) [spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [this is an andrew dabb appreciation blog (except when it comes to car stuff)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-an-andrew-dabb-appreciation-blog-%28except-when-it-comes-to-car-stuff%29) [here have my belated thoughts on the whole love... and love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/here-have-my-belated-thoughts-on-the-whole-love...-and-love) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	40. Chapter 40

[Jan 22, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156205562240/m-sherezade-replied-to-your-post)

10 notes

[m-sherezade](https://m-sherezade.tumblr.com/)

 

[ Between the promo and the interview with Dabb….](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156198904125/between-the-promo-and-the-interview-with-dabb)

> Thanks for taking the time to write this answer. I love to read you because I share your opinion and you put order in my thoughts. Really appreciate this. And Yes, my boyfriend is my best friend too :) “Best Friend” is a very deep expression with a much broader meaning. If you have a especial friend you are confidence that You’ve earned it. You’ve worked hard to get there.

 

Aah! thank you! It was my pleasure (and I confess I’m actually grateful that the superwiki page was down, or it probably would’ve been twice as long…) :P

But yeah. Best friend can encompass a pretty big range of feelings. Sure, Dean doesn’t have mountains of friends to turn to, but really. Who has ever stuck by him through absolutely everything the way Cas has? Who has died for him (multiple times)? Who has he put his life on the line for as often (aside from Sam, of course, and giving his life up for Sam is how Dean met Cas in the first place, so…).

And now Dean’s even awkwardly asking Cas for advice on dealing with Mary. Because he trusts Cas. Not just the advice that Cas gave him (which was blunt and probably good advice, but still… it was secondary to the point), but the fact he trusted Cas enough to even admit he was struggling that way in the first place.

He hasn’t even opened up to Sam about it. But he told Cas. Because some things you can’t really talk about with your brother (who you raised and who you’re still maintaining a sort of parental protectiveness over to an extent), but a best friend? Yeah. They’re a go-to.

And whoops I started doing it again… okay shutting up again. It’s 2:30 in the morning. I should probably sleep. :D

  

 

[m-sherezade](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/m-sherezade) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	41. Chapter 41

[Jan 26, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156424048820/i-still-cant-get-over-the-fact-that-dean)

1,438 notes

I still can’t get over the fact that Dean Winchester, Mr. I Must Always Drive Unless Gravely Wounded Or Some Shit, rode in the freaking baCK SEAT of a car.

He wasn’t under arrest. He wasn’t a child. He wasn’t trying to play nice with his parents in 1978 (like in 5.13).

When the heck else has Dean EVER freaking rode in the damn back seat of ANYTHING.

Because you KNOW Sam would’ve deferred to Dean to Pick His Seat. Because when it comes to Winchesters and cars, that’s official Dean Territory.

Yet… there he was, sitting in the back seat with Cas, while Mary drove and Sam rode shotgun.

Like… that’s not a small statement.

  

 

[spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [fuck it i'm tagging it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/fuck-it-i%27m-tagging-it) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel)


	42. Chapter 42

[Jan 26, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156426851620/i-was-reading-your-post-about-the-back-seat-and)

223 notes

**Anonymous asked: i was reading your post about the back seat and just realized dean decided to sit there with cas knowing billie was going to come collect someone (and lbr, dean was thinking it was going to be himself taking one for the team).**

yeah. he’s the one who made the deal. It was his choice to call Billie in. He’s the one who broke.

(I mean we kinda called it that Dean would break first here)

And he would take that on himself. He just needed Sam to agree, to go along with it. He wasn’t gonna give Sam the option to sacrifice himself when it was Dean giving up and calling Billie in the first place.

Frankly, if Billie had said no, I think Dean would’ve probably just told her that he was done, and to just go ahead and take him. Period. End of deal. He would’ve given up.

He said it was worse than Hell.

I mean, we only saw intermittent shots of their life in prison, but imagine having spent the last six weeks there, in silent isolation, with nothing but that food tray popping through the window to break up the monotony. Even in Hell, stuff happened. It wasn’t just Dean stuck alone with his thoughts, his guilt, the entire burden of EVERYTHING…

Then as soon as he gets outside, he calls Cas to come get him.

He knows he’s only got a limited amount of time. I think that’s also (in hindsight) why he reverted to Purgatory Dean in the woods there. Just like in s3 where he kept using himself as bait, doing the crazy-risky thing instead of playing it safe, because he already knew he was gonna die. Why not take a few risks, you know?

Like in s6, when he’d already been turned into a vampire, he just walked into that nest and SLAYED. Because he thought he had nothing left to lose.

That’s the Dean we saw in the woods. And also why his hug with Cas was so heartbreaking, and the way he just glommed on to Mary… and why he rode in the back with Cas… he knew. He was fully prepared to say goodbye again.

And then Cas was just like NOPE. NOPE NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

Cas knew Dean made the deal, and that Dean would honor his word. And Cas noped him out.

  

 

[spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	43. Chapter 43

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my thoughts added to those of angelswatchingover

#  [The real reason Cas didn’t get that vampire](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156429544485/the-real-reason-cas-didnt-get-that-vampire)

[Jan 26, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156429544485/the-real-reason-cas-didnt-get-that-vampire)

364 notes

[angelswatchingover](http://angelswatchingover.tumblr.com/post/156427873268):

> At first I was like WTF when Cas couldn’t kill a simple vampire. I mean, come on, this guy is a badass with eons of experience killing demons, he won the war against an archangel, Molotoved the devil, and has a ton of super powers.
> 
> Then I remembered… this was him last time Dean was missing: 
> 
> And it makes a lot more sense. Cas didn’t fail on a hunt because he couldn’t find a vampire. I think he was too depressed and distracted by Dean being missing to hunt. Sure, he tried a bit, but I’m betting 90% of that hunt was him checking his phone, downing coffee and moping, listing for any hint of a prayer, and sitting in the car playing sad songs on repeat. Poor boy’s so smitten, he couldn’t even concentrate long enough to find a single blood sucker. 

Yeah, and back then he was slowly dying from his grace burning out too, but it was depression helping him along there. Just like it’s been ptsd and depression since early s11 too…lying in bed, watching bad tv, too messed up to even leave the bunker to help Dean on a hunt…

But he didn’t have anything to fall back on here. He didn’t even have Sam, and the one time he’d contacted Mary when Sam and Dean first disappeared, she blamed him for not keeping them safe. (I mean she was scared and hurt and had felt left out that they didn’t call her for backup, but still… that hurt to hear from her).

So yeah. Basically I agree.

Not only is Cas depressed and adrift without Dean (or even Sam, really), he doesn’t even have enough human coping skills to recognize the fact that he’s depressed. He’s so much more at the mercy of his own feelings than a human would be, because they’re so alien to him, as well.

(yes, I know, he’s been human before, but he wasn’t supposed to feel this with his own grace back now, you know)

  

 

[spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN)


	44. Chapter 44

 

 

[Jan 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156500387645/ive-had-some-anons-who-have-been-concerned-that)

188 notes

I’ve had some anons who have been concerned that this episode is heralding a return of the codependency dynamic, but I think that’s leaving out a huge part of what 12.09 was hammering home, and completely ignoring what that experience was for Dean.

We encountered this exact same difficulty with 11.17, Red Meat. For my money, that episode was a HUGE turning point for Dean, and I was shocked that so many people seemed to react to it negatively, believing that it was only reinforcing the codependency, because I saw it as the exact opposite, and I have talked about that fact AT LENGTH. I mean, see pretty much [my entire 11.17 tag](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn%2011.17) for reference purposes. If you don’t have time to wade through all 

 

(the linked posts are below this one in this chapter)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150593470245/if-you-think-that-there-was-any-growth-for-dean> (which is pretty much summed up with the quote “Maybe try watching it again without the presumption that the show is trying to show you the absolute worst version of everything.”)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142206972625/mittensmorgul-i-watched-1117-again-today-and>

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142033546845/im-rewatching-the-episode-just-to-point-out-some> (which is literally 4k+ words on the episode)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142551724425/winjennster-gillasue345-winjennster>

I mean, there’s more, but I’ve got other stuff to do today besides rehash 11.17… :D

But saying that Dean called Billie in with the sole intent of sacrificing himself to save Sammy? THAT’S ERASING PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING WE KNOW ABOUT DEAN’S CHARACTER GOING ALL THE WAY BACK TO THE PILOT EPISODE FOR THE SOLE PURPOSE OF FORCING YOURSELF TO FEEL ANGRY AT THE SHOW.

So, maybe own that, internalize it, and then look at the ENTIRE text in context without cherry-picking the details that support the negative argument you’re trying to make.

(sorry if I sound a bit angry/wanky there, but some of my anons are clearly coming from a place of deep anger about this issue, and it’s just not what I saw in that episode, or with Dean, AT ALL, so… yelling at me isn’t gonna change reality)

Let me explain.

From the pilot episode, Dean Winchester has been the Official Poster Boy for Abandonment Issues. He’d been fine hunting on his own for a while. He was hurt when Sam left the family to go to college, but Dean carried on hunting with John. At some point, knowing that John was hunting and Sam was safe at Stanford, Dean was content to hunt on his own, BECAUSE his family was still accounted for, even if they weren’t physically present in his life. The thing that drove him to finally beg for Sam’s help? The fear that John might’ve been injured and/or killed on a hunt. THAT was what Dean couldn’t face alone:

 

> Dean: I can’t do this alone.  
>  Sam: Yes, you can.  
>  Dean: Yeah, well… I don’t want to.

Dean 100% thought he was going to go looking for John and find his body. He couldn’t face that alone, despite having been hunting on his own for a while by that point. It was the loss he couldn’t face alone.

Over the years, the ONE THING that has frightened Dean the most has been ABANDONMENT. BEING ALONE IS DEAN WINCHESTER’S #1 FEAR AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN. PERIOD. THE END.

I’d pull references for this fact, but it was essentially the driving force of the entire series, so, may I direct you to like every episode of Supernatural ever…

Dude stoically stared down Lucifer and shot him in the face. He walked alone into a pizza parlor and shared a slice with Death. He went into a diner having prepared himself to let the Mother of all Monsters BITE HIM in order to kill her. He, a human being, was the most terrifying thing in Purgatory, to the point the monsters whispered scary stories about HIM.

He’s not afraid of anything. Except being alone with himself.

To Dean, there has been no greater threat, no more terrifying fate, than what Amara proposed (and what Billie proposed) in s11. The Darkness, The Empty. They both essentially amounted to the same thing. Both were coded as metaphors for depression, suicide, annihilation of self.

Literally they were threatening him with the complete annihilation of his soul. These things were held up like a mirror to Dean in 11.17 and again via his extreme isolation in that prison cell in 12.09.

The prison cell was as close to the Empty as we could possibly put Dean without actually rending his soul into nothingness. This was absolutely lampshaded by Agent Camp’s little speech from the promo clip, when he was explaining exactly how he intended to torture Sam and Dean. (lucky me, I’m about 2/3 done with the transcript of the episode. This is unedited, but largely complete.)

 

> I don’t believe in torture. Doesn’t work. Oh, I’ve seen folks waterboarded, cut on. And they talk. Ooh, they do.  
>  But they never tell you what you need. You know what does work, though? Every time? Nothing.  
>  [Sam looks up at Camp at that]  
>  CAMP: See, when I leave, that door closes, and it stays closed, [scene shifts back to Dean] and you stay in the dark. Now, maybe that doesn’t sound so bad.  
>  [Camp moves so he’s leaning down in front of Sam]  
>  CAMP:  But after a month? [scene shifts to Camp leaning identically in front of Dean] A year? You spend enough time staring at these walls, just you and all that nothing, [shift back to Sam] you’ll get so crazy to talk, to see someone real, you’ll tell me exactly what I need. You’ll tell me with a smile.  
>  [Shifts back to Dean]  
>  CAMP: It’ll just take some time.  
>  [Camp leans back against the wall opposite Dean again with his arms crossed, with multiple shifts back and forth to Sam and Dean]  
>  Of course, the thing is, after what you did, no one’s in a hurry to get you that phone call. So you and me, we got all the time in the world.  
>  [Sam’s cell door slams shut and we see him flinch, Dean’s cell door slams shut hiding him from view]

We saw Sam flinch twice– first at Camp’s use of the word “Nothing” to describe the method of torture he preferred, after describing waterboarding and cutting. THIS was what got Sam’s attention. Sam’s experience of being locked away, potentially for an eternity, was closer to what Camp described before, with the constant physical torture. Because THAT was Sam’s idea of torture. Yes, we’ve seen him endure it with a hearty SCREW YOU, but this isolation is something Sam is at least a little more psychologically prepared to accept than his brother is.

Because to Dean? Isolation is literally worse than his experiences in hell. Worse than 30 years of being tortured by the most accomplished torturer the universe has ever seen. And then 10 years of torturing others in turn… which to Dean ended up being even WORSE than actually BEING tortured.

Also, what was Dean’s first experience upon arriving in Hell? What was his Welcome to Hell reception area experience?

UTTER ISOLATION! BOUND BY CHAINS! COMPLETE LOSS OF FREE WILL!

Let’s not forget the shot where we reached this point by zooming into Dean’s eye until it blurred with the chains and nothingness inside his own mind… I’m sure that wasn’t a metaphor for Dean’s psyche or anything…

THIS. IS. DEAN’S. PERSONAL. HELL.

Throughout s11, Dean was confronted with these themes in the form of his guilt over the previous season and a half while dealing with the Mark of Cain. This emptiness, the absolute TERROR of the Loss of Self… I mean… going back to 10.09, this was literally his nightmare. Loss of self to the darkness of the Mark. It was his horrifying train of thought while talking to Len in 11.05 about what it was like to have lost his soul.

And Dean’s literal nightmares over the course of the entire series have revolved around loss, loss of self, and abandonment.

Can you begin to see why Dean broke first in the muggle version of The Empty? Locked away, alone, with nothing for company but his looooong history of guilt, depression, and abandonment issues? With nothing to break up the monotony but the thrice daily shout of CHOW TIME! and a screw to etch eternal hash marks into his concrete box?

THIS WAS EFFECTIVELY THE WORST THING THAT DEAN COULD EVER POSSIBLY IMAGINE HAPPENING TO HIM, SHORT OF UTTER OBLIVION.

I mean, in comparison, the Empty sounds pleasant. At least he wouldn’t have to EXPERIENCE all that nothingness, because he would’ve ceased to be.

THAT BOX WAS WORSE THAN HELL TO DEAN WINCHESTER.

I already replied to another anon shortly after the episode aired, and touched on this there:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156426851620/i-was-reading-your-post-about-the-back-seat-and>

One line I used in that reply was this: “Frankly, if Billie had said no, I think Dean would’ve probably just told her that he was done, and to just go ahead and take him. Period. End of deal. He would’ve given up.”

He would’ve preferred the literal Empty to staying in that concrete cell for one more CHOW TIME!.

Dean. Broke.

It had fuck-all to do with Sam. Well, it probably had a little bit to do with Sam, because heck, if Dean was going to throw in the towel, why not get something for Sam out of the deal in the process?

Go back and watch every Dean scene after they escape from the prison, with the knowledge of all the details of the deal Dean made with Billie. Because DEAN made that deal. Sam was just along for the ride. Dean was 100% in charge of that deal, and he fully intended to be the one to pay the price for it.

That entire run through the jungle was his last hurrah. It was Purgatory Dean on his Where’s the Angel quest all over again. Like, literally.

It was a culmination of every time Dean’s gone full “I’m on the clock so I’m gonna throw myself into the world as hard as I can until the world manages to take me out.” From s3′s cheeseburgers-for-breakfast and baiting-vampires-for-kicks, through s6′s raid on the vampire next, to s7′s kamikaze run on Dick Roman, to his 9.11 demon fight in Cain’s kitchen, to his end of s10 revenge against the Stynes, to handing himself over to Death in 10.23, to swallowing a soul bomb and flinging himself at Amara in 11.23. (luckily he chose to use his words instead of detonating himself, right?)

CASTIEL WAS THE ONLY PERSON DEAN WANTED TO SEE AGAIN BEFORE HE DIED ONCE AND FOR ALL.

He NEEDED Cas to show up and find him. He didn’t tell Cas about his deal, and Sam kept pressuring Dean to talk about the deal, but Dean just kept saying “later.” As if there was really gonna be a “later” for Dean.

He’s a man of his word, and I’m certain his intention was live up to the bargain HE CHOSE TO MAKE with Billie.

Notice he couldn’t even look Cas in the eye when they found him in the woods. Dean. Couldn’t look CAS in the eye.

(how many fanfics have centered around the fact that Dean stares back at Cas just as much as Cas stares at him? and here he can’t even meet Cas’s eyes? AT ALL?! AFTER SIX WEEKS OF FEAR AND ISOLATION AND WORRY AND SADNESS AND ANGST?!)

Because Dean knows this is it. This is the end. The looks on his face there are of a broken man.

And then Dean sees Mary. One person he neither expected to see, nor had any idea how to deal with in that situation. I think HER presence there is what made him hesitant when Billie showed up to collect her Winchester.

In the car, when the clock struck midnight, Sam called “It’s time.”

Dean was sitting IN THE FREAKING BACK SEAT. WITH CAS.

At Sam’s statement, Dean sneaks a heartbreaking glance at Cas, who slowly understands that Dean has Done Something Terrible in order to have escaped that prison. The look Cas gives him is even more heartbreaking. Dean can’t even bear it, and so looks away… (borrowed from [@k-vichan](https://tmblr.co/m4FImMInGlX_QoCekzgv66w)‘s post [here](https://k-vichan.tumblr.com/post/156471961924/12x09))

  


Okay…

The one variable Dean wasn’t counting on was MARY being there. Because she stepped in front of the bullet that he’d intended to take himself. Her mere PRESENCE there added about 10 layers of PROBLEMATIC for Dean, because he could live up to the deal he’d made and say his goodbyes to Sam and Cas… they’ve lived that scene before… but Mary’s presence was a wild card. Her presence was a spanner in the works, a deviation from what Dean thought was The Perfect Plan.

Dean had NO IDEA what Cas had been suffering through in his absence. He had NO IDEA that Cas would call Mary in for backup, because CAS couldn’t handle rescuing Dean alone. He’d been fucking up simple vampire hunts, because he’s been so depressed, isolated, and alone (just like Dean…). He couldn’t risk fucking up Dean and Sam’s rescue (because in Cas’s opinion, that’s all he was able to do.. mess things up and get in the way).

Dean also had NO IDEA that Cas and Mary would involve the BMoL (hello consequences of shady deals!).

Gah. I mean, there was just SO MUCH here. I should probably shut up.

So saying Dean did all of this just for Sammeh, because brodependency? Is essentially erasing the entire character of Dean Winchester, and the earth-shattering significance of everything that happened in this episode.

Because no. Just, no.

 

 

  

 

[spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [too many episodes to tag them all](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/too-many-episodes-to-tag-them-all) [oh dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-dean) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [and the 6x9 concrete box that for dean is worse than all of those other dimensions combined](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-the-6x9-concrete-box-that-for-dean-is-worse-than-all-of-those-other-dimensions-combined) [breaking the codependency](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/breaking-the-codependency) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [pro tip folks if you want me to actually publish your anon messages maybe phrase them in non-hateful ways mkay? thanks](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/pro-tip-folks-if-you-want-me-to-actually-publish-your-anon-messages-maybe-phrase-them-in-non-hateful-ways-mkay%3F-thanks) [wank adjacent](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wank-adjacent)[because i took a tone in this post and i apologize but i love these characters too much to not scream about them sometimes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-i-took-a-tone-in-this-post-and-i-apologize-but-i-love-these-characters-too-much-to-not-scream-about-them-sometimes) [long post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/long-post)

 

 

 

 

Sep 18, 2016

54 notes

**Anonymous asked: if you think that there was any growth for dean character in s11 with that gross unnecessary horror of "red meat" that exists solely for blatant fanservice for bibros i don't know what to tell you, that's why i don't trust dabb as a showrunner, i didn't expect the worst regression from him tbh. btw even jensen when asked about dean character growth in s11 showed his bitternes and pointed the lack of it**

Hello, anon. And yeah, I think this is proof that everyone sees the show differently.

I also admit that I saw this ask first thing this morning (pre-coffee and awakeness) and my first knee-jerk reaction was to reply with an equal measure of salt. Either that, or delete it entirely and write a vaguepology post about why I couldn’t answer. I do try to keep this blog a happy place, but I know you’re not the only one who feels this way. It’s just… not how I saw that episode at all.

I’ll start with what Jensen has said on the subject, because I don’t know exactly what response you’re referring to here. It’s not that I don’t believe what you’re saying, it’s a combination of the fact that I just don’t know the specific incident/quote/comment you’re referring to, as well as the fact that I always take actor comments with a large helping of side-eye. While I’m interested in what they have to say about their characters, the actors often don’t see the larger picture they’re part of creating. It’s just the nature of the job, to be “in the moment” when they’re performing, rather than watching the entire plot unfold the way the audience does. So yeah, I’d be happy to learn what Jensen’s opinions are, but they’re not the end-all final word on Dean’s character development.

As for the “regression” you saw in 11.17, I don’t know what to tell you. There’s [nearly 150 posts in my tag for that episode](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn%2011.17), and I have spent a lot of time already discussing why it was probably the most profound evidence of character growth in all of s11. For Dean, specifically. It was difficult to watch, and on the surface was repulsive… and it was  _supposed to be_. 

It was the last major turning point of Dean’s redemption from the darkest period of his life. To me, with the blatant callback to 6.11, with Billie giving him her final warning and Dean finally understanding that death and emptiness are not the answer– that he’s NOT disposable… well.

To use a variation of your own words, if you DON’T think there was any character growth for Dean in s11, I don’t know what to tell you. And if you think 11.17 exists as blatant fanservice to the bibros, I don’t know what to tell you. It was one of the most stunning examples the show has ever given us of the toxicity of their codependency and pointed the way toward  _finding another way_ , a better way, beyond the codependency. It shattered something in Dean, and again, if you can’t see that, then I don’t know what to tell you.

Maybe try watching it again without the presumption that the show is trying to show you the absolute worst version of everything.

Sorry if this got just a little bit wanky, but again, the issues Dean’s been dealing with are not simple problems that will be fixed with one single shining moment of revelation. He’s fighting against his own sense of worthlessness, and the codependency he’s lived with for more than 30 years. The themes of s11 were “You can’t outrun your past” and “there’s got to be another way.” And for me, 11.17 was an outstanding example of that, delivered in the most painful possible way. In context with the surrounding episodes (11.16, 11.18, and 11.19– the point at which HE FIRST ADMITS OUT LOUD AND OUTSIDE THE SANCTITY OF THE CONFESSIONAL THAT HE HAS INTEREST IN LIFE BEYOND HUNTING AND TENTATIVELY ASKS WHAT IT MIGHT BE LIKE SETTLING DOWN WITH ANOTHER HUNTER. SOMETHING FUNDAMENTAL HAS SHIFTED HERE), it’s part of a presentation of this ENTIRE theme. Finding ANOTHER WAY.

That sequence culminates in 11.20 with the return of God. I mean… clearly they’re on the road to finding that alternate way. There IS a light at the end of the tunnel, and for once it’s not a freight train.

This is why I absolutely trust Andrew Dabb as showrunner.

And if you can’t see that, then I just don’t know what to tell you.

 

 

  

 

[spn 11.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.17) [wank adjacent just in case](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wank-adjacent-just-in-case) [but mostly just a little bit salty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-mostly-just-a-little-bit-salty) [spn 11.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.16) [spn 11.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.18) [spn 11.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.19) [spn 11.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.20) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [this is an andrew dabb appreciation blog (except when it comes to car stuff)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-an-andrew-dabb-appreciation-blog-%28except-when-it-comes-to-car-stuff%29) [and I meant absolutely no disrespect dear anon i just used your own words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-I-meant-absolutely-no-disrespect-dear-anon-i-just-used-your-own-words)[if you're interested in my opinion-- which i believe you must be since you messaged me](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you%27re-interested-in-my-opinion---which-i-believe-you-must-be-since-you-messaged-me) [then might i suggest reading everything in my 11.17 tag before implying that i somehow don't understand what happened in that episode](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/then-might-i-suggest-reading-everything-in-my-11.17-tag-before-implying-that-i-somehow-don%27t-understand-what-happened-in-that-episode) [and yeah while i value jensen's insight into his character](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-yeah-while-i-value-jensen%27s-insight-into-his-character) [he has a long history of BEING that character to the point he assumes the Performing Dean mask himself](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/he-has-a-long-history-of-BEING-that-character-to-the-point-he-assumes-the-Performing-Dean-mask-himself) [when answering questions about character development because he adopts dean's natural defensiveness](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/when-answering-questions-about-character-development-because-he-adopts-dean%27s-natural-defensiveness) [and he's only recently admitted that he loves chick flicks after 11 years and we've all known this all along so...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-he%27s-only-recently-admitted-that-he-loves-chick-flicks-after-11-years-and-we%27ve-all-known-this-all-along-so...) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 3, 2016

68 notes

[mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142189568575):

 

> I watched 11.17 again today, and found an interesting little thing I wanted to put in writing before I forgot about it again. :D
> 
> When Michelle came to Dean’s hospital bed to apologize and thank him for saving their lives, she mentioned something her mother used to say that she admitted she’d never really believed before. Namely, “Death is not the end.”
> 
> Presumably the experiences she’d just survived had made changed her mind on the subject, as near-death experiences often do. Something about what she’d seen and survived made her truly believe that death  _isn’t_  the end. Which is very interesting when considering the exchange she has with Dean a few scenes later in the pharmacy locker room:
> 
>  
>
>> DEAN: I need to talk to a… well, I wouldn’t call her a friend. More like a…  **scary, crazy death machine**. Werewolves aren’t the only monsters out there.
>> 
>> MICHELLE: How exactly do you talk to an…  **evil, scary death machine**?
>> 
>> DEAN: Easy. I die.
> 
> Dean knows reapers. He doesn’t think they’re evil. They’re just doing their job. It’s a job he has first-hand experiences with. See 6.11 for clarification if you need to. He may not like what they do, because  _life’s not fair and that sucks_ , but he UNDERSTANDS what they do, and why it’s important. He’s learned the consequences of reapers not doing their job. (in both 6.11 and 4.15, not even mentioning all the problems with souls trapped in the veil in s9, because the show has conveniently seemed to have forgotten about them, too…)
> 
> Despite Michelle JUST HAVING SAID TO DEAN that DEATH IS NOT THE END, her opinion seems to have taken a 180 just a few minutes later. Granted, she was stunned by Dean’s comment, and seemed to be floundering trying to repeat what he’d just said and put it into some kind of context. She was unable to come up with his exact phrase, so instead of “crazy” she came back with “evil.”
> 
> It’s a small difference, but one that speaks to the conflict she’s feeling. She’s regretful over Sam’s death, but she also knows the truth of what happened. Two strangers show up to rescue her and her husband from  _literal actual monsters_. They were minding their own business enjoying their honeymoon when suddenly the existence of werewolves became a reality for them. That alone would be traumatizing, but then to witness this strange change come over the man she loved, to watch him succumb to his own monstrousness and then literally become a monster has obviously affected her in ways she hasn’t even begun to process.
> 
> So despite her claiming that she can see that death is not the end, her first association with dying in that moment was “evil.” She takes a moment, and you can watch her face as Dean’s plan begins to sink in, and she grows determined to help him despite not understanding  _why_  he’s insisting on trying to kill himself. She still trusts him, and she owes him something for saving her, as well as for Sam’s death. Because that’s where her assessment of death as “evil” is coming from: her internalized horror over what she believes Corbin did to Sam.
> 
> In the end, I don’t know if learning that the doctor believed that Sam having been smothered (because he wasn’t choked, he was smothered) will help her cope with what Corbin did. She seems stuck, unable to move forward. Literally, in that she was discharged from the clinic an hour ago, and is still sitting there in the hallway unable to leave, and having no idea where to go from here anyway.
> 
> She was a Cas mirror throughout the episode, and after Dean tells her that Sam will recover and be fine again, she replies, “Well, that must be nice,” with a sad little uncomfortable smile. Their situations have been reversed. Now Corbin is dead-dead, and Sam is alive. The things she’s lived through, though, have changed her forever. She can’t go back to the life she knew before. Just like Cas has been told that he can’t go back to heaven anymore. He’ll never really fit in there again, just like Michelle can’t imagine a way to just get over what’s happened to her and go back to her old life.
> 
> I’ve been thinking over her comment about watching “the man I love” die, and admitting that there’s nothing normal after that, and how people have discussed whether Dean was thinking about Sam or Cas in that moment. But I’m now seriously considering the fact that Dean may have been thinking about  _himself_.
> 
> He’d just swallowed a ton of pills in order to die long enough to chat with a reaper. He didn’t think twice about the consequences of his actions. He even  _absolved_  Michelle of any guilt if the doctor couldn’t revive him. He’s always been so cavalier with his own life. But looking at this scene again, watching this look of sad resignation and realization cross his face, I really do think at least PART of what he’s feeling is the understanding that THE PEOPLE WHO LOVE HIM would never be able to get back to “normal” if he’d died.
> 
> It feels like a direct callback to both 10.07:
> 
>  
>
>> DEAN: I get it, that was your story. Look man I got one of those too, okay but those stories that we tell that keep us going. Man, sometimes they blind us. They take us to dark places – the kind of place where I might beat the crap out of a good man, just for the fun of it. The people who love me, they pulled me back from that edge. Cole once you touch that darkness… it never goes away. Now the truth is… I’m past saving. I know how my story ends, it’s at the edge of a blade or the barrel of a gun. So the question is is that gonna to be today? It gonna be that gun?
> 
> as well as 10.22:
> 
>  
>
>> Castiel: Maybe you could fight the Mark for years, maybe centuries like Cain did. But you cannot fight it forever, and when you finally turn, and you will turn, Sam and everyone you know, everyone you love, they could be long dead. Everyone except me. I’m the who’ll have to watch you murder the world, so if there is even a small chance that we can save you I won’t let you walk out of this room.
> 
> ***ETA: I’d forgotten to add in “Benny’s” conversation with Dean in his hallucination of Purgatory while under the influence of the Werther Box in 10.19. Basically, everything Dean’s subconscious spat out at him through the Benny Hallucination, but specifically this:
> 
>  
>
>> Benny Hallucination: Oh, I-I’m sorry. I forgot… about your plan. You gonna get Sam and Cas to put you down? You really think that they’re gonna keep that agreement? Come on. Dean, let’s say they do. Do you think they will ever recover from that? It will ruin them. This little backup plan of yours, I know you’ve been thinking about it for a time, I know it’s been gnawin’ at you. You can’t leave that job to them.
> 
> And in this context,  _spoken by the Cas mirror character, who in this case was talking about Dean’s mirror character as “the man I love,”_ and how she’ll never be normal again after his death… well, I think that just helped hammer home the lesson for Dean that his life might be more valuable to the people that love him (because he doesn’t deny it anymore that there  _are_  people who love him) than any personal sacrifice he can make on their behalf, whether it be for Sam or for Cas.
> 
> It makes me wonder what kind of sacrifice Dean’s going to choose NOT to make. Maybe he’s finally learning there are lines that are best left uncrossed, and that the people who love him might never find anything like “normal” again if he were to give in to the darkness, or sacrifice himself for “the greater good.”

 

Reblogged from [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142189568575/i-watched-1117-again-today-and-found-an)

 

  

 

[spn 11.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.17) [spn 10.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.07) [spn 10.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.19) [spn 10.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.22) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [reblobbing because I've seen this cross my dash a dozen times again and every time it's the unedited version](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/reblobbing-because-I%27ve-seen-this-cross-my-dash-a-dozen-times-again-and-every-time-it%27s-the-unedited-version) [so here's the version i updated with 10.19 and HalluciBenny aka dean's subconscious spilling truth all over the place](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/so-here%27s-the-version-i-updated-with-10.19-and-HalluciBenny-aka-dean%27s-subconscious-spilling-truth-all-over-the-place) [in case anyone needed further evidence that dean already understands all of this because he as much as admitted it to himself a year ago](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/in-case-anyone-needed-further-evidence-that-dean-already-understands-all-of-this-because-he-as-much-as-admitted-it-to-himself-a-year-ago) [grated he hasn't had much of an opportunity to act on it because mark of cain and darkness and casifer and all that crap](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/grated-he-hasn%27t-had-much-of-an-opportunity-to-act-on-it-because-mark-of-cain-and-darkness-and-casifer-and-all-that-crap) [but he DOES KNOW IT and that warms my tiny shriveled heart](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-he-DOES-KNOW-IT-and-that-warms-my-tiny-shriveled-heart) [plus 10.19 was a bobo episode and so was 11.17 so you do the math](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/plus-10.19-was-a-bobo-episode-and-so-was-11.17-so-you-do-the-math)

 

 

 

 

 

Mar 31, 2016

36 notes

I’m rewatching the episode JUST to point out some of the parallels I noticed last night, just to organize them all for my own future reference. **  
**

Of course, because of who I am as a person, I ended up writing nearly 4k on the subject, so I’m putting it under a cut. I have to leave the house for a few hours, so I’m posting this unedited. I’ll have to reread it when I get home tonight, so apologies for any weirdness. Here we go!

In the opening fight, Sam and dean are each fighting one of the wolves while Corbin and Michelle are hanging from the rafters being particularly useless. Sam drops his gun but continues to fight (and is it just me or are these werewolves being dumb. I mean they’ve got huge great claws and fangs, but they’re PUNCHING WITH FISTS? I mean yeah, they’re only wolves part of the time, but damn. You’d think they’d rely more on their best weapons instead of continuing to punch people. Just saying.)

So that was the setup. Sam loses control of his weapon, takes a MAJOR HIT when the monster picks up his weapon and fires it back at Sam, while Dean’s ALREADY DEFEATED HIS MONSTER (parallel: saved Cas from Lucifer) and is unable to do anything but WATCH IN HORROR AS SAM FALLS TO THIS CREATURE, just in time for Dean to refocus his attention on the monster Sam hobbled and stab it to death. Spoiler alert: Sam muddles through ALL OF THIS, and fights his way THROUGH APPARENT DEATH, and then handily deals with two other werewolves before driving himself to the hospital and arriving just in time to save Dean from the newly-turned Hipsterwolf.

Right there, I saw Sam’s entire story arc in this episode as a tidy metaphor for the role Sam’s taken on for himself regarding their fight against Amara. I hope I don’t need to actually spell that out for anyone (but I will if someone needs me to). Right. Moving on!

So the first scene in the bunker, Dean’s clearly focused on the SAVE CAS end of the research, because when he asks Sam if he has anything on his end of the research (which Dean then specifices in a bullet-pointed list as 1) Amara, 2) Lucifer, 3) hand of god? Sam says, NO! But here’s a completely unrelated CASE!

Dean immediately wants to call in another hunter and immediately goes back to his research. Dean, Mr. I Hate Research, buries his face in a book instead of jumping at the chance to go out and hunt something. If we needed context as to Dean’s sudden determined focus, Sam gives it to us in the next sentence. No tiptoeing around it or making it look like Dean’s drowning in multiple problems. Sam closes his laptop, takes a deep breath, focuses intently on Dean and says, “We’ll get him back.” Sam knows what’s what.

Dean grates out a “How?”

Sam doesn’t know, but he essentially throws Dean’s, “We’ve gotta get out of here, clear our heads,” that Dean pulled back in 11.15. It seemed to work for Dean back then, helped him refocus and “keep grinding.” Sam’s trying to do ANYTHING in his power to help Dean deal with his mounting sense of hopelessness with regard to saving Cas.

The scene flashes back to the cold open cliffhanger, and here begins our parallels for the episode. The chained up couple begin to stir, and Dean desperately tries to tend to Sam with terrible field surgery.

Corbin is immediately worried about his wife, begging Dean to tend to her, too.

Michelle’s first comment to him after learning they were attacked by werewolves is, “See? I told you they were monsters.” She just accepts the fact of the supernatural, much the same way that Mildred did in 11.13, while Corbin presumably tried to deny it despite the evidence of his own eyes. This is already setting up a dissonance within this couple, which only grows throughout the episode.

Dean’s running around trying to help EVERYONE, in typical Dean fashion. He tries to delegate care of Michelle to Corbin, but Corbin keeps demanding more and more from Dean. I already don’t like him, and we’re only 5 minutes into the episode. :P

And right here, Michelle draws even further suspicion toward Corbin, asking him if HE’S okay, because of something that she insinuates happened the previous day… “Are you going to be okay? I thought… yesterday…” Which Corbin dismissess as “just a couple of scratches” while trying to joke about this being “the best honeymoon ever.” Wow, this guy’s got a strange idea of honeymoons.

Sam gets up and pushes through the pain so they can all try to escape before “the other” werewolves return.

Flashback to the bar:

The bartender lady, at first, claims she doesn’t recognize any of the missing people, and chalks it up to her age (“Everyone under 40 looks the same to me. Sorry.”) Just one more “old and tired” reference.

But then she comes back when she brings them their check, and gives them a lead on the cabins in the park. So despite her not having a lead on the people, she has a crucial bit of knowledge that Sam and Dean can use to approach their problem from a different direction. Instead of chasing down a specific target, they’re looking for a specific location. They’re using an unconventional approach to solve the problem, which I think is something they’re going to need to do to defeat Amara. Not track down Amara, per se, and not send a specific person or people after her (i.e. Sam, or Dean, or Casifer/Lucifer/Cas), but approach it in a completely different way.

Later on, we learn that she and her creepy looming bouncer dude are actually the leaders of the werewolf pack, and her entire chat in the bar was a deception, deliberately leading them to the cabins with the intent that her other wolves would “take care of them” for her. Yet one more instance of the monsters making a critical error, and underestimating the Winchesters.

*digression: Sam and Dean really need to invest in a satellite phone for times like this when Sam’s internal WiFi fails them.

A lantern for Sam, and a lantern for Dean. It’s nice both lanterns keep burning, even when it looks like Sam is dead, or Dean is dead.

And here Corbin makes his first Critical Error in Winchester diplomacy: He suggested that they leave Sam behind, essentially condemning him to die, in order to give his wife a chance to survive. Dean’s INDIGNANT, of course.

Dean points out that this guy’s being an ungrateful jackass, because without him and Sam coming to their rescue, they’d both be dead by now.

Dean’s still on the NO WE ARE GOING TO SAVE EVERYONE (but especially Sam) kick.

While Dean is outside fighting trees and calming down, Sam tries to convince Corbin and Michelle to get Dean to leave with them, but Corbin sees that Dean won’t leave Sam behind, and Corbin also admits that they won’t survive out in the woods without Dean’s help. We have reached an impasse.

This is the point where I began seeing Corbin as a direct mirror for Amara.

Corbin wants Dean (in this case, for the help he can offer getting him and Michelle to safety). Corbin has put his (and by extension, Michelle’s) needs above those of both Dean and Sam. He’s willing to do anything to override Dean’s wishes and manipulate him into fulfilling his own desires instead, to the point where he takes action in the form of suffocating Sam in order to achieve his ends.

Corbin doesn’t give a shit about anyone other than himself. He claims he’s doing it for Michelle, but that’s only because he also wants Michelle to be okay because she belongs to him and he’s willing to do anything to keep her. Toxic codependency, anyone?

While he’s being suffocated, Sam sees the werewolf bite on Corbin’s arm. Sam knows that it’s too late to save Corbin, but Sam’s too dead/unconscious/whatever by the time Dean gets back to warn his brother.

And then Corbin starts lying, claiming he doesn’t know what happened to Sam. But they have bigger problems to deal with. Dean wants to stay and fight, because even dead, he can’t leave Sam behind. Corbin doesn’t understand that kind of loyalty, didn’t know that Dean would react this way. Aw, Corbin you selfish ass. His pleas for help do finally register to Dean, though, and Dean decides to try to lead the couple to safety, pledging to Sam that he’ll come back for him. *single man tear* but Dean really did move on. In that moment, he let Sam go in order to try and save everyone he could, in a similar fashion to how he did in 11.16 after seeing Sam dead on the floor of the Soul Eater’s nest (which granted, he knew that one wasn’t real, but still, Sam Dead On The Floor is a recurring image now)

Flashback:

Sam is ENTIRELY TOO CHEERFUL about this hunt, as if he can cheer Dean up just by showing the kind of enthusiasm that brought Dean out of his funk back in 11.15. Sorry, Sam, Dean’s already achieved a much greater degree of funkiness than an eager-puppy disposition can cure.

*digression #2: this is the “it was night, now it’s day!” scene. Just how long were they tromping through the woods while Sam quietly rotted back on that cabin floor?

Corbin might be wearing Cas colors (blue, white, and tan) here, but it’s just a mask. He’s chosen this outfit to fit into his image of what a honeymoon in a national park should be, but underneath he’s failing at this whole “outdoorsman” thing, and is relying on Dean to save both him and Michelle.

So, in addition to the obvious Amara parallel (which I’ll expand on more in a bit here), I also see Corbin as a Casifer parallel, especially going back to the time before Dean KNEW he was dealing with Lucifer in Castiel’s vessel. He’s got some deep ugliness going on under the cute lil plaid shirt. Not only is he a murderer, having suffocated Sam with his bare hands, he’s also hiding the werewolf bite, which we all know will turn him into a Real Actual Monster, instead of just the monstrous human he’s already shown us that he is.

Michelle questions him about what happened back at the cabin with Sam, and Corbin frames it as, “I saved us,” while sort of talking around and downplaying his role in Sam’s death. Michelle understands what he’s saying, and becomes visibly uncomfortable, clutching the blanket tighter around herself as Corbin tries to assure her that he did only to save HER.

And this is where my Michelle= Cas parallel kicks in. Wrapped in a blanket, hurt, feeling particularly useless other than having been right all along that the creatures who’d held them captive were literal monsters. And Corbin professes he did this out of love for her, because HE couldn’t lose her. *opens my toxic codependency to English translation guide and comes up with THIS WAS AN ENTIRELY SELFISH ACTION THAT I CAN CONVENIENTLY BLAME ON OUR PURE LURVE* and then files it under “I did what I had to do.”

Because Michelle is a decent human being, she’s not swayed by what Corbin is trying to frame as a “romantic gesture,” and is rightfully repulsed by it.

Finally! Help appears to have arrived in the form of the sheriff! Dean’s been absolved of his responsibility to these two strangers, and can finally get back to Sam. But wait! The sheriff turns out to be a douche! He tries to keep Dean from leaving, and instead of explaining in words, Dean’s too impatient and (stupidly) punches the sheriff in a bid to escape.

Just one more circumstance when a few words would’ve likely at least given Dean a chance to get away cleanly. To be fair, this was the perfect opportunity for Corbin to speak up and convince the sheriff to let Dean go, because there were other hurt people he needed to bring to safety, or whatever. Corbin just held his tongue, because he’d already gotten what he wanted. Corbin doesn’t care about anyone but Corbin.

So instead of being able to return to Sam, Dean’s brought into the hospital where he’s tended to by a really strong Mary mirror. A caretaker who even physically resembles his mother, but who’s also willing to go out of her way to help him, despite not buying into his bullshit.

Corbin then tells a string of lies to the cop while Michelle lies there feeling horrified about it and Corbin ickily keeps one hand on her WRONG SHOULDER throughout. I have it paused on a freeze-frame of her face, and yeah, she’s horrified.

She tries to correct Corbin’s story, insisting that they don’t just refer to these as “bad guys,” but as MONSTERS, and specifically WEREWOLVES. The cop looks bemused at this, and henceforth dismisses anything the “crazy lady” might have to say, and begins bonding with Corbin instead. Figures. The two douchenozzles bond over their mutual douchiness.

Here Michelle, wearing a tan hospital gown covered with tiny blue flowers (need I repeat, CAS MIRROR?) finally gets indignant at Corbin’s insistence on covering up the truth. Corbin tries to dismiss and minimize Dean’s role in their rescue, but Michelle won’t stand for it. She all but demands Corbin show his respect. The cop then reinforces Corbin’s story and dismisses Michelle’s with, “Your wife’s been through a lot.” But Michelle’s lot has been cast. She’s already sided with Dean here. Corbin, buddy, that’s the moment you lost her for good, whether you realized it or not. He puts a hand on her head and says, “We made it,” but she looks like she’s about to cry and rolls away from him as he WRONG SHOULDER TOUCHES her again. Literally he keeps rubbing on her shoulder for the next two minutes while she squirms under his hand.

The doctor finds the werewolf bite, in about the same spot the Mark of Cain was on Dean’s arm once upon a time, and Corbin stares into the middle distance and insists he feels “good.” Hooboy. Does this not recall endless strings of “I’m fine” from every member of TFW over the years?

Michelle is right, Corbin is not really Corbin anymore. The monster inside him is already beginning to take hold, and he’s not fighting it off very effectively. No wonder she was so creeped by his earlier actions. This is not the man she just married.

Cop tries to call the park ranger to check out the cabins, but the ranger is dead, too.

Michelle, for the first time in the entire episode, actually smiles. AT DEAN. When she comes to check on him/thank him for saving her. Repeat, the Cas mirror character SMILED FOR THE FIRST TIME AT DEAN.

And then said “HI.”

She tried, despite her own trauma, to apologize, and reassure Dean about what lies beyond death. “Death is not the end.”

OF COURSE, that’s the moment Dean recalls Billie’s warning. He remembers that THIS TIME, DEATH REALLY IS THE END for him and Sam both. You can see the horrible, horrible light click on the moment he realizes it.

That’s when he goes on his beeline for the drugs cabinet, and Michelle follows him. Because of course the Cas mirror is gonna follow Dean, willing to help him however she can. And at this point, I don’t think Dean’s death wish is “suicidal” in nature. The same way he had Pamela astrally-project him and Sam back in 4.15 (but they don’t have a Pamela to do that for them anymore), and the same way he used Dr. Robert to “kill” him for a few minutes in 6.11 so he could get an audience with Death, Dean’s not thinking past the immediate need to get in touch with a reaper, pronto. I don’t even think he’s processing this as what it might look like from the outside, that people who aren’t used to dying and coming back to life on the regular might look at his actions as self-destructive or suicidal. He’s thinking of this from the perspective of someone who just needs to place a very complicated, very long distance phone call.

Meanwhile, while Dean’s rummaging around the “barbital” drugs in search of enough valium to off himself (even temporarily), Sam’s gasping in his first breaths in at least 8 hours…

Dean explains to Michelle what he’s doing, and tells her to get the doctor to resuscitate him if she can. He doesn’t want to die, but he accepts it almost as a matter of course, like it’s in his job description or something. It’s not a healthy attitude, but I think Dean gets that now. This “death” was epically pointless for him. Sam was not in danger of dying. Billie said so herself. Dean also got to watch himself dying on the floor in a really undignified manner.

Michelle tries to convince Dean he doesn’t have to do this, but Dean insists he does. The difference between this and Corbin’s earlier “I did what I had to do” is that the only person Dean’s hurting here is HIMSELF. Corbin’s actions hurt EVERYONE ELSE, and only protected Corbin.

So, just as Dean downs that toxic handful of pills, Sam “rises from the dead.” Can we take a moment to appreciate the amazing directing in this episode?

So Sam, having been presumed “taken out of the game” by the Amara mirror, KEEPS ON FIGHTING YEAH SAM!

Dean’s swooning and dying while Michelle asks how he feels, and then slumps to the floor.

While Sam’s stumbling down the stairs, and they both fall to the ground simultaneously (ANOTHER SHOUT OUT TO THE DIRECTING!)

But SAM GETS BACK UP AND KEEPS FIGHTING. And Dean knows NOTHING about that.

Sam’s bleeding has restarted. He’s clearly in agony, and Dean’s now lying lifeless on the floor seizing and foaming at the mouth, while the doctor tells Michelle to HOLD HIM! Yes, Cas mirror character, HOLD HIM!

Corbin watches his wounds heal in the mirror as his fangs and claws grow. He’s surprisingly calm about this development, as if his personality has just been overridden or erased entirely by his wolfishness. (and here ends the parallel between Corbin and Casifer, and the Corbin and Amara parallels resume in full force).

Dean critiques the doctor’s technique in her attempt to save his life (pffft, Dean), and then Billie shows up, and he critiques HER tardiness.

This whole scene has been meta’d to DEATH (including a thing I wrote this morning), so I’ll just say “Peak Baio,” Dean’s entire premise for trying to sacrifice himself was WRONG, and Dean has just learned in a very real and concrete way that HE is no longer a cosmic bargaining chip. He can’t just throw himself at problems willy-nilly anymore.

And what brings him back? A SHOT TO THE HEART. Because we haven’t had enough heart/love metaphors yet this season apparently.

MEANWHILE BACK AT THE CABIN: SAM FUCKING WINCHESTER takes out two werewolves, steals their truck, and saves himself.

MEANWHILE BACK AT THE HOSPITAL: Douchebag cop dude IS STILL INSISTENTLY MISSING THE ENTIRE FUCKING POINT and focusing on a litany of irrelevant details, wanting to arrest Dean for stealing and consuming illegal drugs, of all things.

The doctor refuses to sedate Dean after his ordeal, but Michelle wordlessly continues to help Dean, freeing him so he can try to get back to Sam…

Sam, who’s already saved himself, by the way, and has made it HOME. The way he leans on Baby and just shows such RELIEF! Oh my god.

But then Dean steps outside and gets Sam’s call with the SCREAMING TRAIN WHISTLE OF DOOM in the background.

Sadly, the call breaks up, and Dean doesn’t get the full memo on Corbin. Poor Sammy, has to do fucking EVERYTHING for himself pffft.

But Dean knows Sam’s on his way, so he goes back into the hospital to wait, which is when Corbin shows his true colors (i.e. werewolf colors), and tells the doctor HE’S REALLY OKAY right before he kills her.

Michelle tries to help the doctor, the cop comes running and Corbin kills him too.

Corbin tells Michelle, as she watches HORRIFIED at what he’s done, his hand COVERED in blood from ripping out two peoples’ hearts (very reminiscent of the Quareen’s heart removal tactic), and says he didn’t want any of this, but it feels so good (much like Amara’s earliest victims did, back in 11.05 and 11.06). He egged Michelle on, intending to turn her, too, apparently so they could be together forever, enticing her to embrace it like he has. Very much like Amara was trying to entice Dean to accept their “bond” back in 11.09. Dean ADAMANTLY refused, and has felt manipulated and controlled by her since then. IT’S WRONG ON EVERY LEVEL, just like Corbin’s embracing being a werewolf.

Finally, we have Dean’s conversation with Michelle. Dean saying Sam was only “mostly dead” with a roll of his eyes, like he doesn’t even believe it himself. He’s experienced so many supernatural oddities that just because doctors can’t explain a thing, Dean knows there might still be some non-natural explanation out there, even if he doesn’t have the answer.

There’s plenty of meta on this scene too, how it relates to Dean and Sam, how it relates to Dean and Cas, and how it relates to Dean’s own acceptance that sacrificing himself isn’t going to be worth anything in the end.

[I just reblobbed a meta that covers this nicely,](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142031851150/thoughts-on-11x17) so I won’t even go into my final takeaway from this here. Just suffice it to say the Cas mirror survives, albeit damaged, but she survives. I only hope Dean gave her Jody’s number. Or Donna’s. Or Eileen’s.

She just kept sitting there, for an hour, after being told she could leave, but she has nowhere else to go anymore. Something like Cas has had nowhere else to go for a long time now. Exiled from Heaven, feeling like he didn’t really have a place with the Winchesters. Hopefully Dean can prove him wrong.

Why didn’t Dean tell Sam about his adventures with attempted suicide? Because he learned something from it. Hopefully, anyway.

 

 

  

 

[spn 11.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.17) [spn s11 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-spoilers) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [apologies in advance for this one folks but I was supposed to leave her five minutes ago and just wanted to post this for later review](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/apologies-in-advance-for-this-one-folks-but-I-was-supposed-to-leave-her-five-minutes-ago-and-just-wanted-to-post-this-for-later-review)

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 10, 2016

71 notes

[winjennster](http://winjennster.tumblr.com/post/142548365299):

 

> [gillasue345](http://gillasue345.tumblr.com/post/142329941601):
> 
>  
>
>> [@winjennster](https://tmblr.co/mkv4We6XOUzXgc_moJ_wxGg) replied to your post [“Finally got around to watching Red Meat.  Ow?  owwie? Ouchies.  Bobo…”](http://gillasue345.tumblr.com/post/142327688276)
>> 
>>  
>>
>>>  
>>> 
>>> I want your opinion on Dean. Character regression or wake up call? I’ve made my decision on it, but I want to see which way you go.
>> 
>> Hmmmm… My first instinct was to say regression, because it was same song second verse kind of thing. Sam dies, Dean tries to play let’s make a deal. Yawn. 
>> 
>>  But then I thought more about it. Though Dean does go “Let them come,” in a very similar manner to “Let it end!” from season two, he does get up from his brother’s dead–er sorry–  _mostly_  dead body. He gets up. He saves the people. He puts their well being first. 
>> 
>> Season 2 Dean probably wouldn’t have done that. 
>> 
>> As an aside, loving the princess bride reference. Love it. A lot. 
>> 
>> Was Dean a colossal idiot for taking barbiturates and whatever else? Yeah. It was stupid and reckless and just plain  _dumb_. And I wanted to slap him over the head. But… he did make sure there was someone there to get help. He did ask her to get a doc to save him. He wanted to come back, despite the plea he made with Billie to leave Sam and take him instead. He did mutter about the docs not putting him on his back as he was seizing–as another aside, where did Dean learn all this medic/EMT first responder information? Oh  _God_  now that’s got me thinking about firefighter/EMT Dean in a what might have been AU…. he’d be so great at that job. 
>> 
>> But, back on point,  you also have to consider his physical/mental state at the time of the attempted suicide. He was suffering from a bad concussion. He’d just been tased. He has broken ribs, and who knows what kind of internal injuries from the beating he took. So on a pain scale he was probably at a Winchester 8. And his decision making was probably hampered by that. 
>> 
>> Add that to his feelings of helplessness at saving Cas, saving his brother, killing Lucifer, and taking out God’s friggin sister Amara, and Dean is not in a good place. And when Dean’s not in a good place, he makes reckless decisions. Which is perfectly in character for him, and I suspect it will always be a part of his character. 
>> 
>> Now, do I think it was a wake up call? I honestly don’t know. Because in the end, he deflects when Sam asks him what he did, like he knew Sam wouldn’t like the answer. What do you think?
> 
> I honestly felt like it was a wake up call. I was intensely watching Jensen’s eyes and jaw while Billie was explaining why she intended to reap him and there was a hella lot going on up there. But for me, the biggest thing was “Sam’s not dead”. I saw the lightbulb go on. I think maybe his internal monologue would have been something like - shit. I just killed myself. For nothing. I came in here to argue with her to bring Sam back and for what? He’s not dead - but I am. Fuck. Now I can’t save Cas, I can’t help win this fight. Shit. Shit. Shit. I think for Dean, maybe that was the moment when he realized his life was worth something more outside of sacrifice. Like maybe there’s a point to his existence. I dunno. I feel like you did a really good job explaining this while meanwhile my head feels like it’s full of cotton. Lemme phone a friend. Hey [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) hop in here.

Oh gosh. I’ve already written a few things on how I read Dean’s state of mind there. That line at the end of the show about losing “the man I love,” there’s been lots of meta connecting it to both Sam and Cas, but I tried to consider if Dean may have been thinking about  _himself_ , as a man that both Sam and Cas love.

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142206972625/mittensmorgul-i-watched-1117-again-today-and>

This one here <http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142033546845/im-rewatching-the-episode-just-to-point-out-some> is literally four thousand words on the entire episode if you’ve got some time on your hands…

But it boils down to, yeah, I think Dean gets it now. There’s one line in[ this meta](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/142031851150/thoughts-on-11x17) I reblogged a while back that sums it up nicely:

 

> this time, Dean learns that his sacrifice is pretty unnecessary and that maybe even though he’s not affecting change in a substantive way, throwing his life away doesn’t help anyone either. Now, Dean isn’t the man that he himself loves, but he is loved by at least two other people in his world. Perhaps it’s a bit of a stretch, but I think there’s something to it. Perhaps Dean needs to realize that his willingness to die hurts other people and he needs to think about how he should seek not only to save others, but himself as well (or at least try to). His intentions (as they often are) were noble, but nobility just doesn’t cut it anymore. I also think this is part of the reason he doesn’t tell Sam he tried to make a deal with Billie. He needed to realize that his death doesn’t just affect him.

aka, this was that one time when the codependent thing would’ve been to force the knowledge of his own stupid action onto Sam, and the healthy thing to do was to keep it to himself, learn the lesson, and move on.

 

 

Source: [gillasue345](http://gillasue345.tumblr.com/post/142329941601)

 

Reblogged from [winjennster](https://winjennster.tumblr.com/post/142548365299/gillasue345-winjennster-replied-to-your-post)

 

 

[spn 11.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.17) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [suicide mention](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/suicide-mention) [sorry i'm kinda fuzzy tonight too so hopefully this makes some kind of sense :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sorry-i%27m-kinda-fuzzy-tonight-too-so-hopefully-this-makes-some-kind-of-sense-%3AP)

 

 

Jan 26, 2017

223 notes

**Anonymous asked: i was reading your post about the back seat and just realized dean decided to sit there with cas knowing billie was going to come collect someone (and lbr, dean was thinking it was going to be himself taking one for the team).**

yeah. he’s the one who made the deal. It was his choice to call Billie in. He’s the one who broke.

(I mean we kinda called it that Dean would break first here)

And he would take that on himself. He just needed Sam to agree, to go along with it. He wasn’t gonna give Sam the option to sacrifice himself when it was Dean giving up and calling Billie in the first place.

Frankly, if Billie had said no, I think Dean would’ve probably just told her that he was done, and to just go ahead and take him. Period. End of deal. He would’ve given up.

He said it was worse than Hell.

I mean, we only saw intermittent shots of their life in prison, but imagine having spent the last six weeks there, in silent isolation, with nothing but that food tray popping through the window to break up the monotony. Even in Hell, stuff happened. It wasn’t just Dean stuck alone with his thoughts, his guilt, the entire burden of EVERYTHING…

Then as soon as he gets outside, he calls Cas to come get him.

He knows he’s only got a limited amount of time. I think that’s also (in hindsight) why he reverted to Purgatory Dean in the woods there. Just like in s3 where he kept using himself as bait, doing the crazy-risky thing instead of playing it safe, because he already knew he was gonna die. Why not take a few risks, you know?

Like in s6, when he’d already been turned into a vampire, he just walked into that nest and SLAYED. Because he thought he had nothing left to lose.

That’s the Dean we saw in the woods. And also why his hug with Cas was so heartbreaking, and the way he just glommed on to Mary… and why he rode in the back with Cas… he knew. He was fully prepared to say goodbye again.

And then Cas was just like NOPE. NOPE NOT GONNA HAPPEN.

Cas knew Dean made the deal, and that Dean would honor his word. And Cas noped him out.

 

 

[spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	45. Chapter 45

[Jan 30, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156585746400/i-cant-stop-thinking-how-cas-and-dean-were)

123 notes

I can’t stop thinking how Cas and Dean were experiencing much the same sort of “aloneness” in 12.09. How for both of them, the absolute WORST thing they can imagine is being left alone, isolated, with nothing for company but their own thoughts

Dean called Billie, but Cas also called Mary.

He brought her there because he didn’t trust himself to be enough to save Sam and Dean.

I read an angry comment the other day about how Dean thinking isolation for a couple of months in prison was worse than his 40 years in hell devalued everything he experienced in hell, but that’s not the case. In fact, I think it proves just how much his experience in Hell truly affected him.

When he was in actual, literal Hell, he might’ve PREFERRED isolation, because at that point in his life, he probably felt like he deserved it. He’d have felt it was justified, because even locked away alone, he would’ve had the knowledge that Sam was okay because of his choice (much the same way that Sam was okay with isolating himself in the Cage in 5.22 knowing that Dean was okay because of his choice). (well, at least physically okay…)  And he didn’t have his ACTUAL MEMORIES OF BREAKING IN HELL to rehash on a continuous loop, like he did sitting all alone with nothing for company but the contents of his own memory.

Back at the end of s3, he didn’t have the 9 years worth of trauma and horrifying memories and incredible guilt for breaking the world over and over, he didn’t have his memories of the Mark, of the Darkness…

THAT’s what isolation was for him in 12.09.

In his present circumstances in that prison, he didn’t even have the knowledge that he’d given it all up for Sam, so that Sam could be free and alive and safe to comfort him, because Sam was in the next cell over.

There was NOTHING about his current situation to redeem him in the least. In Dean’s mind, it really was worse than hell. And that doesn’t take anything away from the magnitude of what Dean suffered in actual literal Hell back at the end of s3.

Just like Cas didn’t have this enormous burden of guilt and trauma when we first met him. And now, incredibly, we’re at a point in the story where Dean and Cas are in nearly the exact same place, mentally and emotionally.

Something must give.

 

 

[spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words)


	46. Chapter 46

[Feb 3, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156760480395/12x10-are-you-too-yowling-at-the-8x07-echo)

31 notes

**Anonymous asked: 12x10! Are you too yowling @ at the 8x07 echo: ("You could have gotten yourself killed. / It would have been my problem. / Well, that’s not the way I see it") where Dean refers to cosmic consequences as a collective TFW problem, Cas of course wants to treat it as his problem alone, & Dean SCOFFS AT The NOTIOn. followed by the aggressive teamwork of the episode, the "sometimes my decisions need to be questioned" admittance from Cas, Cas WATCHing Dean's angel banishment decision. I have, such hope**

Well, now I’m yowling at it… O_O

This is an excellent comparison. I mean, they’ve had this conversation before. It’s just never gone  _quite this way_  before.

Lampshaded by Cas’s particular rapport with Ishim as being similarly antagonistic (the whole “did you come here to insult me or to talk about Benjamin” “why can’t it be both…”), and Sam and Dean’s insistence that Cas shouldn’t stand for that kind of treatment (differentiating it from the disagreement currently running between Dean and Cas).

AND THEN DEAN’S SPEECH AT THE END, standing beside Cas while confronting Ishim, SOLIDARITY WHEN IT COUNTS!

Then reiterating their support for Cas back at the bunker, and Dean explaining he’s not angry, but worried. His grumpiness was borne from CONCERN and CARE and not as a judgment of Cas’s actions.

This is progress. They’re using words. And they’re hoping to find another better way.

 

 

[spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [spn 8.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.07) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	47. Chapter 47

[Feb 3, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156761049320/that-episode-tho-3-mittens-you-ever-chinhands)

169 notes

**Anonymous asked: THAT EPISODE THO <3 Mittens you ever chinhands cause Dean highkey communicated how he wants Cas to be careful and Cas highkey communicated what he wants from Dean (thoughtfulness and appreciation) via the Benjamin chat-- and then later Dean gives Cas a beer and says he earned it (thoughtful & appreciative) & a gesture Cas says he appreciates even if it won't do much effectively & he is not jetting off alone yet which is definitely more cautious than he could be/has been. like... whoa... great**

*highkey chinhands*

*sees lil tweeting birdies circling my head from overly-aggressive chinhandsing*

Castiel’s entire description of Benjamin’s relationship with his vessel: 

CAS: Benjamin wouldn’t call for help lightly, or put himself in harm’s way if he could help it.  
DEAN: Wow. This Benjamin seems like he’s pretty cool. Like he wouldn’t make any half-cocked, knee-jerk choices.  
CAS: Yeah, you know what I like about him is that he’s sarcastic, but he’s thoughtful and appreciative too.  
DEAN: [Dean practically turns all the way around to glare at Cas, nearly running the Impala into oncoming traffic in the process… horns honk] What’s that supposed to mean?  
SAM: [freaking out from nearly crashing] Whoa whoa watch the road!  
DEAN: [raises his hand in dismissal] Got it.  
SAM: Anything else, Cas?  
CAS: Benjamin was always very careful. Long ago, he found a powerfully devout vessel in Madrid, and her faith, it… she gave him everything. Her trust, her body…  
DEAN: Wait, so Benjamin is a woman?  
CAS: Benjamin is an angel. His vessel is a woman, but it… it’s more than that. She’s not just his vessel, she’s…   
SAM: She’s… his…  _friend_.  
CAS: Benjamin would… never put her in… unnecessary danger.

Can we all agree that Sam’s awkward pauses while choosing the word “friend” there are because he had non words for the sort of… Profound Bond that Benjamin seemed to share with his vessel? And that there were HEAVILY IMPLIED undertones of a romantic relationship there?

And that by the end of the episode, Dean’s sarcasm had finally given way to prove that he is also thoughtful and appreciative of Cas the same way Benjamin was with his vessel, and that Dean’s apparent grumpiness was borne from the same caution and concern about  _each of them putting themselves in harm’s way on behalf of the other_?

Because I think Benjamin’s relationship with his vessel was the real love story in this episode, and also the most closely paralleled with Dean’s relationship with Cas via that whole unspoken “friend” thing that was really more of a Profound Bond thing…

*doubles down on chinhands and throws in a side of hearteyes for good measure*

 

 

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [benjamin](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/benjamin) [here have my belated thoughts on the whole love... and love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/here-have-my-belated-thoughts-on-the-whole-love...-and-love) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	48. Chapter 48

[Feb 3, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156766379795/so-wait-whats-your-sheherazade-tag-then-what)

16 notes

**Anonymous asked: so wait, what's your sheherazade tag then? what does it mean?**

[Scheherazade ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FScheherazade&t=Nzg2ZTlhYWUwM2Q5ZTg3MTMxZWYwNzI5OTFlMTljMjkzOGU0ZTVmMCxSM3NhOGcxZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F156766379795%2Fso-wait-whats-your-sheherazade-tag-then-what&m=1)is the main character in [the 1001 Nights](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FOne_Thousand_and_One_Nights&t=YzE1NWMxYTA1ZWE0NjM0MTE2YzEzNjhhOTM2ZTEyODQyMjYxNGUyOCxSM3NhOGcxZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F156766379795%2Fso-wait-whats-your-sheherazade-tag-then-what&m=1).

(copied from the wikipedia link above because I think I’ve explained this before, and I’m too lazy to type it again…)

The story goes that [Shahryar](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FList_of_One_Thousand_and_One_Nights_characters%23Shahryar&t=N2U1YmIxOWE2ZTljMWUwYjM4NTlmZmMwNWE1OGYxZTUyYTZjZTdmMCxSM3NhOGcxZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F156766379795%2Fso-wait-whats-your-sheherazade-tag-then-what&m=1) (شهریار  _Šahryār_ , “server of the realm”, i.e., the king) found out one day that his first wife was unfaithful to him. Therefore, he resolved to marry a new [virgin](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FVirgin&t=Y2FiZTExZTM2NjJjYTZiN2NhOGIzYmMzOTI2NjQzZjVjYzNjNzM5NixSM3NhOGcxZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F156766379795%2Fso-wait-whats-your-sheherazade-tag-then-what&m=1) each day as well as behead the previous day’s wife, so that she would have no chance to be unfaithful to him. He had killed 1,000 such women by the time he was introduced to Scheherazade, the [vizier](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FVizier&t=ZmM3ZjgxOWJhY2U2M2U5OTY5OWY4MzcyYmViNDAwNDRmOTc2YzY1MyxSM3NhOGcxZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F156766379795%2Fso-wait-whats-your-sheherazade-tag-then-what&m=1)’s daughter. 

_“Scheherazade had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of bygone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred.”_

Against her father’s wishes, Scheherazade volunteered to spend one night with the king. Once in the king’s chambers, Scheherazade asked if she might bid one last farewell to her beloved sister, [Dunyazade](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FDunyazad&t=ZmJkMmQ5ZTMyNjdlMDVkZTRiMTE3YWQ1ZGNlMzFiMzAzNGJmMTZmZCxSM3NhOGcxZg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F156766379795%2Fso-wait-whats-your-sheherazade-tag-then-what&m=1) (دنیازاد  _Donyāzād_ ), who had secretly been prepared to ask Scheherazade to tell a story during the long night. The king lay awake and listened with awe as Scheherazade told her first story. The night passed by, and Scheherazade stopped in the middle of the story. The king asked her to finish, but Scheherazade said there was no time, as dawn was breaking. So, the king spared her life for one day to finish the story the next night. The next night, Scheherazade finished the story and then began a second, even more exciting tale, which she again stopped halfway through at dawn. Again, the king spared her life for one more day so she could finish the second story.

And so the king kept Scheherazade alive day by day, as he eagerly anticipated the finishing of the previous night’s story. At the end of 1,001 nights, and 1,000 stories, Scheherazade told the king that she had no more tales to tell him. During these 1,001 nights, the king had fallen in love with Scheherazade. He spared her life, and made her his queen.

***

Hi it’s me again… Does that explain it? It’s all about this gradual telling of stories that never seem to get all the way told, conversations that are always cut short yet the conversation always picks up again the next time Dean and Cas interact.

(and honestly I keep thinking of Sam as Dunyazade and that doesn’t hurt either…)

The story goes on, each a little more intriguing than the last, and at some point it stops even being about the words and just becomes about Scheherazade’s company itself… and then true love.

 

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	49. Chapter 49

[Feb 5, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156847319900/when-dean-was-talking-to-cas-about-how-worried-he)

25 notes

**Anonymous asked: When Dean was talking to Cas about how worried he was, and cosmic consequences and all that, and Cas said something like "I know" Dean got this look on his face that breaks my heart:-( It's the same look he had when Amara took Casifer to go torture him and all Dean could say was "Cas?" as they left, and it was similar to the look he had when Sam said yes to Lucifer all those years ago. Seems like Jensen does it when he wants to show Dean hopeless and unable to hide his emotions and i just:-(**

Ouch. :(

Yeah, they have no idea what these “cosmic consequences” might be, or really even WHO they’re gonna fall on. Dean, for making the deal that was broken? Mary, for agreeing to fulfill the deal before it was broken? Cas for breaking it?

They just don’t know.

But it was Cas who broke the deal. Dean’s understandably concerned. But now that they’ve laid it out for him IN WORDS, that he’s not MAD, he’s WORRIED… I think Cas can understand a little better where Dean’s coming from here. But I still don’t think Cas understands that Dean is worried because he sees Cas as just as important to him as Mary or Sam.

Cas is all “I’ll deal with it,” and I think THAT is the attitude that Dean’s been grumpy about. That Cas feels like he’s just their “clean up guy,” and not just as important as the rest of the Winchesters. Which leads to Dean feeling… rejected? I don’t know that that’s the right word, but close enough. Because he’s TOLD Cas that he’s part of their family (repeatedly!), he’s TOLD Cas that he needs him (and not just to fix their messes), and yet Cas keeps running off, into danger, without them.

He even tried to do that at the beginning of 12.10, storming out to take care of a “personal” matter. Dean was too busy feeling rejected to even offer to help, so thank goodness Sam was on the spot to be rational and offer his help to Cas.

Cas did willingly accept Sam’s help (and even Dean’s), and I think he’s getting closer to understanding why Dean was so upset now. 

 

 

[spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	50. Chapter 50

#  [We burn that bridge when we come to it.](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156870805980/we-burn-that-bridge-when-we-come-to-it)

[Feb 5, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156870805980/we-burn-that-bridge-when-we-come-to-it)

299 notes

Yeah, Dean used that line regarding Lily, and their plan to ask her nicely not to kill any more angels. The way he phrased it also reminds me a little bit of that scene in 5.03, the way Cas wanted to just walk into that police station and matter-of-factly tell the officers that they witnessed an archangel, and politely ask where the archangel is now.

[I already discussed that scene](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156862526010/do-you-think-ishim-took-cass-phone-could-he) relative to Ishim’s comment about humans lying, because that’s just what they do, so this second reference back to that scene makes the parallel even stronger here. From 5.03: (linked post at the end of this chapter)

CASTIEL: A deputy sheriff laid eyes on the archangel.  
DEAN: And he still has eyes? All right, what’s the plan?  
CASTIEL: We’ll…tell the officer that he witnessed an angel of the Lord, and the officer will tell us where the angel is.  
DEAN: Seriously? You’re going to walk in there and tell him the truth?  
CASTIEL: Why not?  
DEAN: Because we’re humans.And when humans want something really, really bad, we lie.  
CASTIEL: Why?  
DEAN: Because that’s how you become President.

(sue me, I couldn’t resist copying the bit about the lying either, because that’s relevant here too)

And in 12.10:

SAM: So what’s the plan?  
DEAN: We knock on her door, ask her nicely not to kill any more angels.  
SAM: And if she says no?  
DEAN: Then we burn that bridge when we come to it.

This is essentially the first half of Dean and Cas’s conversation there from 5.03. The second half comes from Ishim after we learn the truth from Lily (the human), and learn that Ishim (not a human) has been the one lying all along.

So how does this tie back into burned bridges? Because I’ve been trying to work my head around Ishim’s line about “cutting out his humanity.”

ISHIM: I used to envy you, Castiel. Did you know that? You survived Hell, you were chosen by God. Now look at you. You’re sad, and pathetically weak. So now I’m gonna help you. I’m gonna cure you of your human weakness, the same way I cured my own. By cutting it out. [Ishim walks over to Dean with his angel blade ready, intent on killing Dean]

This was wonderful, because it pinned the label of “Castiel’s Human Weakness” to Dean Winchester’s forehead, but… if the parallel is supposed to tie Dean to Lily… it sort of breaks down there a bit because Ishim DIDN’T kill Lily, he killed HER INNOCENT HUMAN DAUGHTER.

So, why THIS particular parallel then?

Burned bridges.

Ishim loved Lily with everything he had. Obsessively, completely, and irreparably. BUT LILY DID NOT LOVE HIM IN RETURN.

Nothing he did could force Lily to love him back. She initially admired him, was in awe of him, but she never loved him in a particularly human way that he wanted her to. She’d originally been the one to summon HIM, but when he wanted more from her, she summoned another angel to protect her from Ishim. Akobel respected Lily and cared for her and defended her, and in the end gave his life to protect her from Ishim, all the while Ishim was lying to the rest of his flight about the reality of Lily’s situation.

Ishim abused the power of Heaven and his position of authority over other angels (Cas included) to carry out his own revenge mission against a woman who refused to love him.

If he couldn’t have her the way he wanted to, he was determined to burn that bridge to the ground. He destroyed everything SHE loved in turn. First he killed her defender Akobel, and then he killed the one being Lily truly loved, her daughter.

Ishim had thought her powerless, and his only recourse was to punish her as much as he believed she was trying to punish him. He was taking away her last bit of power (or so he thought).

And that’s why he attacked Dean. Not because he was powerless, BUT BECAUSE DEAN WAS TO CAS EVERYTHING HE WANTED LILY TO BE TO HIM.

For all his venom and anit-human rhetoric, Ishim was only bitter that the one human he wanted to love him completely had rejected him. He thought he could use force, or his position, or his magic to make Lily love him, but rejection stung him hard.

Yet here’s Dean Winchester, sauntering in to that diner with less than zero patience, sliding in next to Cas, defending Cas, standing at his side, standing up for him, clearly CARING about Cas, clearly VERY CLOSE to Cas emotionally in a way that Ishim would’ve been over the moon if Lily had been toward him.

So Ishim drives the nail in every chance he gets, bringing up Castiel’s most painful memories (Balthazar, Uriel, the angels who died at his hands…). 

*sorry I lost my train of thought here for a second because my CAT IS SNORING and it’s freaking adorable okay…*

So Ishim is deliberately provoking Dean and Cas both here, and it doesn’t take him very long to see the dynamic between the two of them (even as it differs from the dynamic between Sam and Cas), and singling out Dean as his prime target for “curing Cas of his humanity.”

Because Ishim isn’t trying to destroy Dean for not loving Cas, the way he tried to destroy Lily for not loving him. Ishim’s trying to destroy CAS. Because, in Dean, Ishim believes that Cas got something he was denied. Because unlike Lily,  _Dean loves Cas back_.

Ishim was all about burning bridges.

It also reminds me just a shade of Dean’s line to Kevin in 7.21. He was a little bit wrong here, but he was a heck of a lot right:

“'Cause the angels – they don’t care. I think maybe they just don’t have the equipment to care. Seems like when they try, it just… breaks them apart.”

 

 

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 5.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.03) [spn 7.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.21) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [ishim](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/ishim) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel)

 

 

 

 

Feb 5, 2017

195 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think Ishim took Cas's phone? Could he have snuck it while Cas was healing him? If Cas left it lying around (?) he should have been able to hear it still.**

[nerdylittleshit](http://nerdylittleshit.tumblr.com/post/156861956682/do-you-think-ishim-took-cass-phone-could-he):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156854813910/do-you-think-ishim-took-cass-phone-could-he):
>
>> [thevioletcaptain](http://thevioletcaptain.tumblr.com/post/156832003443/do-you-think-ishim-took-cass-phone-could-he):
>>
>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156831522785/do-you-think-ishim-took-cass-phone-could-he):
>>>
>>>> Oh gosh, yeah, my first thought when Cas wasn’t answering was that Ishim took it. Then it’s almost like Cas could… maybe sense that Dean was trying to call him… maybe he picked up on a… (no mittens don’t say it) a sort of maybe  _longing_ sort of feeling… or just an unsettling concern, and felt all of his pockets wondering what happened to his phone.
>>>> 
>>>> Ishim (while doing weird angel calisthenics) advises him, “You’ll have to keep better track of your things, Castiel.”
>>>> 
>>>> And gosh that’s ominous in hindsight.
>>>> 
>>>> We just saw Cas incredibly weakened by healing this asshat who’s now showing off and demonstrating the sort of vigor he apparently hadn’t felt “in a millennium.” We didn’t see what happened immediately after Cas healed him, or how Cas ended up across the room from Ishim. We instead cut to Sam and Dean’s conversation with Lily, where we all learned the truth about Ishim and what he’d done to her.
>>>> 
>>>> I think Ishim wanted to make Lily his possession. Earlier in the episode, back at the diner, he’d listed Sam and Dean as essentially Castiel’s property, on par with his trench coat. I mean, this is how he views humans. So the line about keeping track of his things? Eep. He means Dean.
>>>> 
>>>> Because Ishim KNEW what Lily would tell Sam and Dean, and he knew that Cas weakened was to his benefit. It makes his pushups and stretches look like he’s literally warming up to fight, and is already planning to kill Dean and Sam when they return, before they can report the truth back to Cas.
>>>> 
>>>> Taking Cas’s phone would just ensure they couldn’t break the news to Cas before they could physically return to the church, giving Ishim a chance to take them all out. Weakened Cas, and two measly, powerless humans.
>>>> 
>>>> Yeah. Right. I guess he hasn’t watched the show before. :P
>>>> 
>>>> Also, side note… I let the episode keep playing after I rewatched the phone scene, and I finally remembered to make a note of this line:
>>>> 
>>>> Cas: Why would she lie?  
> Ishim: She’s human. Kinda what they do.
>>>> 
>>>> Because damn if that doesn’t make me think of 5.03. Because Ishim’s partly right there. When humans want something really, really bad… we lie.
>>>> 
>>>> But Cas also knows that it’s a little more complicated than that now. The world’s not black and white to him anymore. There’s not just good and bad, angel vs human, right and wrong. And often the reasons behind the acts are just as important as the acts themselves.
>>>> 
>>>> Plus Ishim is a terrible liar. :P
>>>> 
>>>> Second side note that came to mind while I was typing the first side note (I swear I know I have a problem with digression but I can’t help it sometimes):
>>>> 
>>>> It’s interesting how the tables have turned a little bit here from the Men of Letters thinking of Cas as merely some tool, an attack dog for the Winchesters, while Ishim thinks of the Winchesters as adjunct tools belonging to Cas and little more than trained monkeys (or possibly attack dogs…).
>>> 
>>> “Then it’s almost like Cas could… maybe sense that Dean was trying to call him… maybe he picked up on a… (no mittens don’t say it) a sort of maybe  _longing_ sort of feeling”
>>> 
>>> ….in all seriousness, though, longing the only plausible reason for why Cas suddenly started looking for his phone when Dean started calling him. 
>>> 
>>> That longing retcon really is the gift that keeps on giving.
>> 
>> Dean does his little “come on come on come on” while the phone rings twice, and the immediate next scene is Cas acting all sulky and grumpy and “Oh, goody,” at Ishim, and then without any apparent practical reason for doing so, suddenly patting himself down in search of his phone. Like he just ~knew~ it was ringing somehow. 
>> 
>> Wait… I already said all this stuff. I’m gonna keep saying it again, using different words for clarity’s sake. :P
>> 
>> Cas couldn’t hear his phone ringing, yet it appeared that while Dean was trying to call him to warn him about Ishim (and only let the phone ring TWICE) Dean was sort of “praying” to Cas, or at least his “ _come on come on come on”_ muttered under his breath was enough to constitute a prayer in the style of Dean Winchester who has invoked “get your feathery ass down here” and “you got your ears on breaker breaker” as forms of formal prayer.
>> 
>> Yet, still, even with Dean trying to contact Cas WITH INTENT, and to deliver a SPECIFIC WARNING MESSAGE ABOUT CAS’S IMMEDIATE SAFETY, the only thing that seemed to get through to Cas was this odd feeling that he’s somehow misplaced his phone…
>> 
>> And it makes me wonder if Cas maybe CAN’T fully hear prayers anymore.
>> 
>> Yes he heard that screaming call on angel radio about the nephilim, and he heard Benjamin’s plea for help (which seemed to work as some sort of spell more than a prayer).
>> 
>> Combined with how weakened Cas became from healing Ishim, and how much he’s been relying on more “human” hunting methods lately, I’m wondering just how damaged his grace might be, or how limited he may be in terms of his mojo, and what that might mean for him.
> 
> Concerning mittens last comment on Cas might not be able to hear Dean’s exact prayer, but only be able to feel his longing: This would also explain why Sam and Dean appearently didn’t pray to Cas in 12x09. Because maybe they did. But Cas couldn’t hear, but only feel their distress. Which in turn messed him up enough that he couldn’t hunt down the vampires. 

That’s actually something we considered… (I didn’t reread these, but I THINK they’re some of the posts where we considered this option… especially that first one there)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156596384035/seven-things-about-supernatural-12x09-first> (not copied here in its entirety because it belongs to @dorkilysoulless, but my comment on this post is below)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156449596150/so-they-didnt-address-any-prayers-from-dean-and>

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156466666530/why-didnt-dean-pray-to-cas-even-if-dean-didnt> (not pasted here because it belongs to elizabethrobertajones, but the post of mine she linked in this post IS copied below)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156730206750/why-do-you-think-dean-never-prayed-to-cas-when-he> (this one is also lizbob's)

Source: [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156831522785/do-you-think-ishim-took-cass-phone-could-he)

Reblogged from [nerdylittleshit](http://nerdylittleshit.tumblr.com/post/156861956682/do-you-think-ishim-took-cass-phone-could-he)

 

 

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [longing in technicolor](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/longing-in-technicolor)

 

 

 

 

Applying the Longing Retcon:

Cas has been feeling Dean’s emotions this entire time, feeling his isolation, his desperation, his agony, and that’s partly what’s been interfering with his ability To Can. Because in addition to his own struggle with depression and isolation and inadequacy, and being less-than-capable of coping with it because he’s still an angel and angels aren’t supposed to feel all these human things (hello shades of Hannah)… adding Dean’s grief/fear/isolation/guilt/entire galaxy of turmoil to the mix?

I have officially injured myself and can’t continue down this line of thought. I’ll be in the corner.

Source: [dorkilysoulless](https://dorkilysoulless.tumblr.com/post/156433162727/seven-things-about-supernatural-12x09-first)

Reblogged from [bluestar86](http://bluestar86.tumblr.com/post/156593920743/seven-things-about-supernatural-12x09-first)

 

 

[spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers)

 

 

 

 

Jan 27, 2017

103 notes

**Anonymous asked: So they didn't address any prayers from Dean and Sam to Cas at all? Really? What are your thoughts on this? It wasn't a warded prison? When Dean's calling him and he doesn't answer he could just pray like hey buddy answer your phone!**

This has been a thing all season long, frankly. Since 12.01, when Cas had no idea that Dean was alive until he returned to the bunker and found him there.

Prayer had been a major thing for Dean in the past (I prayed to you, Cas! Every night!), and we know that Cas is able to pick up on a longing, since that’s how he found Claire that one time… BUT THERE WAS ONE KEY DIFFERENCE HERE!

DEAN HAD NO IDEA WHERE HE WAS EVEN BEING HELD!

So, prayer apparently doesn’t work as an automatic angel GPS locator beacon. Yes, Cas used Claire’s “longing” to find her in the past, BUT CLAIRE KNEW WHERE SHE WAS. She could see things like road signs and landmarks and the like. All Dean knew (or Sam, for that matter) was that they’d been taken somewhere and locked in a concrete box. All the prayer and longing (or even dreamwalking) in the world couldn’t have given Cas any more information than he objectively and textually admitted to having.

I think the fanon idea of what prayer and dreamwalking are capable of has been muddled up with what is actually canon about these abilities.

Basically, prayer doesn’t solve all their problems, has NEVER solved all their problems, and cannot solve them all.

(I agree that it would’ve been nice to know that Dean actually WAS praying to Cas, even if it was just a hopeless “I’m still here but I’m going crazy, man” kind of prayer, but UGH WITH THE POOR ABANDONED CAS FEELS, of him sitting alone in the dark in the bunker feeling ultimately useless in the face of his loss of the Winchesters, and the blame for their absence weighing on him like never before… THE HORROR OF BEING ABLE TO HEAR DEAN’S HELPLESS PRAYERS YET DO NOTHING TO HELP HIM?! Would’ve been so much more painful…

*sits here for 10 minutes staring at the wall like a gelatinized lump of sads*

*I’m watching 5.17 right now, so all of this feels about 10 times worse than it should*

*oh god Cas’s voice mail message has evolved over the years hasn’t it?*

*where was I? what was this about? RIGHT. PRAYER.*

S12 was promising a return to early seasons Badass Castiel Angel of the Lord on a mission, and we’ve seen that… but in a very different way… because CAS HIMSELF IS HAVING A CRISIS OF IDENTITY. Physically and mentally and emotionally, Cas is hovering over a precipice. He’s got a foot in heaven and a foot on earth. He’s still got some of his angel nature and powers, but he’s also grown decidedly more human. He’s lost his wings, yet he’s still an angel… sort of. He’s experiencing emotions very much like a human would, but without the lifetime of experience that a human has dealing with emotions. And he’s not always coping well with them.

Rather than shrugging this off, we’ve watched him struggle mightily under the combined weight of his depression and guilt, and the fundamental disconnect he’s experiencing because he still has his grace and should still technically be an angel who isn’t subject to the burden of these human emotions.

Cas fans have been wondering when Cas is going to get his Big Emotional Importance in the story, and THIS IS IT. THIS IS WHAT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. This is how they’re having Cas’s Big Story unfold.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to imagine that Dean has prayed to Cas this season, but he hasn’t actually had any information to pray AT Cas that could’ve helped his situation, you know? And even once they’d escaped, just praying the information they had once they’d sort of figured out where they were being held at Cas wouldn’t have been enough to serve their needs.

They needed to know that Cas was coming for them. Dean NEEDED confirmation that Cas had heard, and understood, and was on the way. Because they were “on the clock.” They only had until midnight, and he needed to see Cas one last time. THAT WAS THE ENTIRE POINT OF GETTING THAT VERBAL CONFIRMATION THAT CAS UNDERSTOOD AND WAS ON THE WAY, rather than just praying and hoping Cas heard it.

I’m also wondering if prayer is even functioning the same way it has in the past. We know that Angel Radio is still operational after the Nephilim Announcement of Screaming and Smashed Coffee Cups, but aside from that, we haven’t seen any confirmation that Cas’s ability to receive prayers is functioning with the intensity that it always had in the past. Which also adds to the “between two worlds” sort of limbo that Cas is occupying, feeling like he has no idea where he belongs, or even who he is anymore.

Which it ends up being remains to be seen, but I trust Dabb not to have fucked up canon so badly that whoopsie he just forgot that prayer existed…

Because the last time we really saw Dean pray to Cas? 9.01, when Cas was entirely incapable of answering, because he was effectively human and cut off from all his angelic powers. Before that? Was at the end of 8.16, when Dean’s prayers were again going unanswered, because Cas was being mind-controlled by Naomi. And what broke the connection?

Cas claimed he didn’t know… ouch…

Another part of this is the fact that we’ve been shown over and over again that Dean doesn’t entirely think of Cas as an angel anymore. 

“He’s not an  _it_. He’s Cas!”

He’s family. He’s Dean’s best friend. He’s not a hammer or a tool. Dean thinks of him as a person first, and now cue Dean’s self-loathing and feelings of inadequacy. Who is he to pray to angels? I mean, I don’t think this is the major reasoning at work here, but it’s certainly at least a small part of it.

But it’s not the fucking plot hole that I keep seeing people screaming about. It’s sort of beside the point when we look at the bigger themes at work here.

 

 

[spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace)[it's not a shippy thing it's an 'are you an angel or a man' thing](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-not-a-shippy-thing-it%27s-an-%27are-you-an-angel-or-a-man%27-thing) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 

Jan 27, 2017

103 notes

**Anonymous asked: So they didn't address any prayers from Dean and Sam to Cas at all? Really? What are your thoughts on this? It wasn't a warded prison? When Dean's calling him and he doesn't answer he could just pray like hey buddy answer your phone!**

This has been a thing all season long, frankly. Since 12.01, when Cas had no idea that Dean was alive until he returned to the bunker and found him there.

Prayer had been a major thing for Dean in the past (I prayed to you, Cas! Every night!), and we know that Cas is able to pick up on a longing, since that’s how he found Claire that one time… BUT THERE WAS ONE KEY DIFFERENCE HERE!

DEAN HAD NO IDEA WHERE HE WAS EVEN BEING HELD!

So, prayer apparently doesn’t work as an automatic angel GPS locator beacon. Yes, Cas used Claire’s “longing” to find her in the past, BUT CLAIRE KNEW WHERE SHE WAS. She could see things like road signs and landmarks and the like. All Dean knew (or Sam, for that matter) was that they’d been taken somewhere and locked in a concrete box. All the prayer and longing (or even dreamwalking) in the world couldn’t have given Cas any more information than he objectively and textually admitted to having.

I think the fanon idea of what prayer and dreamwalking are capable of has been muddled up with what is actually canon about these abilities.

Basically, prayer doesn’t solve all their problems, has NEVER solved all their problems, and cannot solve them all.

(I agree that it would’ve been nice to know that Dean actually WAS praying to Cas, even if it was just a hopeless “I’m still here but I’m going crazy, man” kind of prayer, but UGH WITH THE POOR ABANDONED CAS FEELS, of him sitting alone in the dark in the bunker feeling ultimately useless in the face of his loss of the Winchesters, and the blame for their absence weighing on him like never before… THE HORROR OF BEING ABLE TO HEAR DEAN’S HELPLESS PRAYERS YET DO NOTHING TO HELP HIM?! Would’ve been so much more painful…

*sits here for 10 minutes staring at the wall like a gelatinized lump of sads*

*I’m watching 5.17 right now, so all of this feels about 10 times worse than it should*

*oh god Cas’s voice mail message has evolved over the years hasn’t it?*

*where was I? what was this about? RIGHT. PRAYER.*

S12 was promising a return to early seasons Badass Castiel Angel of the Lord on a mission, and we’ve seen that… but in a very different way… because CAS HIMSELF IS HAVING A CRISIS OF IDENTITY. Physically and mentally and emotionally, Cas is hovering over a precipice. He’s got a foot in heaven and a foot on earth. He’s still got some of his angel nature and powers, but he’s also grown decidedly more human. He’s lost his wings, yet he’s still an angel… sort of. He’s experiencing emotions very much like a human would, but without the lifetime of experience that a human has dealing with emotions. And he’s not always coping well with them.

Rather than shrugging this off, we’ve watched him struggle mightily under the combined weight of his depression and guilt, and the fundamental disconnect he’s experiencing because he still has his grace and should still technically be an angel who isn’t subject to the burden of these human emotions.

Cas fans have been wondering when Cas is going to get his Big Emotional Importance in the story, and THIS IS IT. THIS IS WHAT WE’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. This is how they’re having Cas’s Big Story unfold.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to imagine that Dean has prayed to Cas this season, but he hasn’t actually had any information to pray AT Cas that could’ve helped his situation, you know? And even once they’d escaped, just praying the information they had once they’d sort of figured out where they were being held at Cas wouldn’t have been enough to serve their needs.

They needed to know that Cas was coming for them. Dean NEEDED confirmation that Cas had heard, and understood, and was on the way. Because they were “on the clock.” They only had until midnight, and he needed to see Cas one last time. THAT WAS THE ENTIRE POINT OF GETTING THAT VERBAL CONFIRMATION THAT CAS UNDERSTOOD AND WAS ON THE WAY, rather than just praying and hoping Cas heard it.

I’m also wondering if prayer is even functioning the same way it has in the past. We know that Angel Radio is still operational after the Nephilim Announcement of Screaming and Smashed Coffee Cups, but aside from that, we haven’t seen any confirmation that Cas’s ability to receive prayers is functioning with the intensity that it always had in the past. Which also adds to the “between two worlds” sort of limbo that Cas is occupying, feeling like he has no idea where he belongs, or even who he is anymore.

Which it ends up being remains to be seen, but I trust Dabb not to have fucked up canon so badly that whoopsie he just forgot that prayer existed…

Because the last time we really saw Dean pray to Cas? 9.01, when Cas was entirely incapable of answering, because he was effectively human and cut off from all his angelic powers. Before that? Was at the end of 8.16, when Dean’s prayers were again going unanswered, because Cas was being mind-controlled by Naomi. And what broke the connection?

Cas claimed he didn’t know… ouch…

Another part of this is the fact that we’ve been shown over and over again that Dean doesn’t entirely think of Cas as an angel anymore. 

“He’s not an  _it_. He’s Cas!”

He’s family. He’s Dean’s best friend. He’s not a hammer or a tool. Dean thinks of him as a person first, and now cue Dean’s self-loathing and feelings of inadequacy. Who is he to pray to angels? I mean, I don’t think this is the major reasoning at work here, but it’s certainly at least a small part of it.

But it’s not the fucking plot hole that I keep seeing people screaming about. It’s sort of beside the point when we look at the bigger themes at work here.

 

 

[spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace)[it's not a shippy thing it's an 'are you an angel or a man' thing](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-not-a-shippy-thing-it%27s-an-%27are-you-an-angel-or-a-man%27-thing) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 

 


	51. Chapter 51

[Feb 7, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156940858715/we-know-dean-is-sexually-attracted-to-cas-cue)

241 notes

**Anonymous asked: We know Dean is sexually attracted to Cas (cue 1,000+ gifs and photos as evicence:P) but what about Cas? We know he has felt sexual desires and acted on them; but he's still a little harder to read in this aspect to me. I think i can safely assume he feels desire for Dean, but it's odd that i say that based on little to no evidence that immediately jumps to mind. He's sexual, but he's not a sexual being in the same way humans are. His love is shown to us by his actions/emotions towards Dean.**

> (continuation of sexuality ask) I guess i’m asking, is there any evidence that Cas feels sexual desire for Dean? We are shown that their love for each other is not one sided, but the physical desire part is treated differently on Cas’s end when we look at it through his lens. How he feels and sees and lets us know how he feels for Dean.

Hey there. This is really fascinating, because now that we’ve been told that Heaven’s Biggest No No, their “most sacred oath,” is an angel lying with a human… it really puts A LOT of Castiel’s… reticence? Is that a good word for it? Hesitation, maybe? Or stand-offishness?

Whatever. It puts his long history of keeping Dean at arm’s length (metaphorically, if not physically… personal space, Cas) in perspective.

(oh gosh I’ve got 7.01 on in the background and I’m watching Cas return the souls to purgatory and the whole sad conversation with Dean about apologizing and redeeming himself and… oh no..)

Where was I? Right.

I wonder how hard he’s been shoving down his “illegal” feelings for Dean. Feelings that could literally get him killed for even expressing them, let alone acting on them?

It seems entirely plausible, no?

 

 

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	52. Chapter 52

[Feb 8, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156981664650/have-we-talked-about-deans-line-whatd-you-let)

97 notes

**Anonymous asked: Have we talked about Dean's line, "What'd you let him talk to you like that?" Because I know people loved Dean's protectiveness which it was but it was also interesting because Cas doesn't let Dean talk to him like that. So I loved that it made us think about Cas' comfort with the Winchesters (Dean) and how he feels safe enough with them to fight right back. Whereas with the angels, he's not comfortable, he's not safe. He doesn't belong. We only fight back when we feel safe enough to do so.**

Hi there, and yeah, I’ve seen a few gif sets of the line (and a few more of various crack takes on that whole conversation (HASHTAG MARRIED)), but I don’t think I’ve seen anyone tear the whole line down. So, let’s do that! :D

There was a lot of weight to that line, even just surrounding the circumstances leading up to it. It’s established right from the start of the episode that Dean and Cas have been giving each other the silent treatment for at least several days. Neither the Superwiki nor the episode itself give us an exact timeline, but I don’t think it can possibly have been more than a few days, since they open with discussing how busy Cas has been to have made the whole “Find Kelly” board, and the discussion about Mary leads us to believe that she just dropped them at home and went off hunting again, with Dean mentioning how “quick” she jumped back into it.

Regardless of timeline, Sam and Dean’s conversation establishes that it’s been a few days since they got home, and that Dean and Cas have been essentially giving each other the silent treatment for that entire time.

And the entirety of Sam and Dean’s talk about this is:

> DEAN: I’m not pissed that he cares about us. You know, I’m… I’m grateful. But Billie said that there would be cosmic consequences if that deal got broken. You have any idea what that means?  
> SAM: No.  
> DEAN: Neither do I. But I’m pretty sure it ain’t jelly beans and g-strings.  
> SAM: My point is, Cas thought he was doing the right thing.  
> CAS: I was doing the right thing.  
> DEAN: You sure about that?  
> CAS: Yes.  
> DEAN: I’m not so sure. And what if the other shoe drops?  
> CAS: I’ll deal with it.

So we already know from this entire conversation that Dean’s only upset that Cas essentially took on the burden of their deal, that it seems like the “consequences” are now going to fall on HIM instead. And the consequences could potentially be worse than their original deal, because cosmic consequences (in the Winchesters’ history) have a tendency to escalate…

(interesting side note: while I’m typing this, I’ve got 7.03 on in the background, and in the scene where Dean kills Amy Pond he uses the same phrase, “Maybe in a year, maybe ten, but eventually the other shoe will drop. It always does.” Then he stabs her and says, “I’m sorry.” I just… there was already a parallel made between this scene and the scene at the end where Dean tells Lily Sunder that she’s done, but Cas tells her to come find him if she can’t forgive him. Okay. Sorry. Just thought that was interesting that the same “the other shoe” line was in that conversation above, putting the scene from 7.03 as bookends for the entirety of 12.10.)

(this is why I should probably turn off the tv while I’m answering questions. Digressions ahoy!)

So already we know that Dean’s not talking to Cas because he’s upset that Cas isn’t talking to him, essentially. When you boil the whole thing down to the simplest elements, Dean and Cas are BOTH pissed at EACH OTHER for trying to take the cosmic consequences on THEMSELVES, INDIVIDUALLY.

This is BOTH of them saying, “No it’s on me. I’m protecting you!” and the other replying, “Well, no, it’s on me. I’M protecting YOU!” And both of them trying to out-protect the other. I mean… married much?

*imagines an infinite loop of Dean and Cas stepping around each other to stand between the other and the nebulous future potential cosmic consequences and just laugh-cries forever*

But when there’s an actual physical and immediate threat, Dean’s ready to drop their tiff to stand shoulder to shoulder with Cas. Dean’s grumpy about the fact that Cas DOESN’T immediately allow him to stand with him against that threat, and the fact that Cas was ready to storm out of the bunker to face that threat alone.

I think that was the first time Dean realized that he and Cas weren’t on the same page here. That Cas might not have understood WHY Dean was so upset.

Yeah, Dean and Cas had been having a spat, but over the course of the episode, Dean and Cas BOTH get a clearer picture of what the other really needed to hear, and it clarified the DIFFERENCE between the way Dean was snapping at Cas (because he cares about him and is WORRIED for him and just wants Cas to let him HELP), and the reasons Ishim was snapping at Cas (because he’s an ASSHAT and ANGRY and bears a GRUDGE against Cas).

And now, Cas can see the difference.

But there’s also the fact that Cas was willing to take a bit of abuse from Ishim because they had history. Ishim had been his commander at one time, and Cas had taken orders from him. Cas also cared about Benjamin, and had said to Ishim that finding Benjamin’s killer was his primary goal, and so he was willing to take a little abuse for it.

And Dean sort of understood that line of reasoning. There’s a lot of abuse Dean would be willing to take on Castiel’s behalf, too. That’s one thing family does for each other, right?

Family might argue and get grumpy with each other, but when it’s time to take a stand against an external enemy, Family is supposed to drop their squabbles and face the enemy together, side by side, as a united front. Sorta like this:

  


When the first thing Cas was confronted with when walking into the Wright Spot to meet Ishim was this antagonistic scene:

Ishim and Mirabel, presenting an already divided front, with Ishim clearly looking confident, like he already knows he has the upper hand. Already it’s not about Benjamin, but Ishim is trying to make it about Castiel…

Cas doesn’t understand WHY Ishim might be angry about Cas’s involvement now (I mean, Cas doesn’t know yet that Ishim’s already on the defensive here, and is scrambling to keep the truth about Lily from coming out, so he gives him the benefit of the doubt, puts his issues aside for the greater good… until he DOES learn the difference.)

(I was just telling lizbob that I’ve been working on this ask for the last two hours because I keep getting distracted by 7.03, then 7.04, and now 7.05, because I am a sucker for extreme pain… and the parallels are SO RELEVANT to s12… and she directed me to this tangentially similar message she answered already, because she’s not letting herself get drowned in extreme Dean Feels like I’ve been all morning… so for compare/contrast, have her answer too:

<http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/156980163843/what-do-you-think-about-ishim-calling-how-dean>

 

 

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [spn 7.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.03) [spn 7.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.04) [just for the Dean Feels Guilty About Everything stuff](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/just-for-the-Dean-Feels-Guilty-About-Everything-stuff) [ishim](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/ishim) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	53. Chapter 53

[Feb 12, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157176688605/i-think-the-way-dean-touches-cas-is-so)

22 notes

**Anonymous asked: I think the way Dean touches Cas is so interesting. Like, he rarely does (i think because he's afraid to; afraid of what it would reveal, afraid of the feelings he wouldn't be able to hold back) but when he does, it's so simple and understated yet so tender and purposeful? Like the recent shoulder touch. He doesn't do quick bro pats with cas. Dean's touches linger. Like he doesn't let himself do it often, so he wants it to last when he does. And he makes them count.**

I really agree with this logic. I mean, quick bro pat:

Lingering touch:

(gif from lizbob’s post on this touch [here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157114333420/obsessionisaperfume-floralmotif), in case you need a more scientific analysis and in-depth look at this particular touch with attendant fist clench of forcing oneself to get his hands under control…)

Yeah, best friends… >.>

 

 

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [this season's getting handsy](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-season%27s-getting-handsy) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [spn 10.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.18)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	54. Chapter 54

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lizbob tag-teamed my anon reply...

[Feb 13, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157179546840/we-know-dean-is-sexually-attracted-to-cas-cue)

241 notes

**Anonymous asked: We know Dean is sexually attracted to Cas (cue 1,000+ gifs and photos as evicence:P) but what about Cas? We know he has felt sexual desires and acted on them; but he's still a little harder to read in this aspect to me. I think i can safely assume he feels desire for Dean, but it's odd that i say that based on little to no evidence that immediately jumps to mind. He's sexual, but he's not a sexual being in the same way humans are. His love is shown to us by his actions/emotions towards Dean.**

[elizabethrobertajones](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/157152265083/we-know-dean-is-sexually-attracted-to-cas-cue):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156940858715/we-know-dean-is-sexually-attracted-to-cas-cue):
>
>> > (continuation of sexuality ask) I guess i’m asking, is there any evidence that Cas feels sexual desire for Dean? We are shown that their love for each other is not one sided, but the physical desire part is treated differently on Cas’s end when we look at it through his lens. How he feels and sees and lets us know how he feels for Dean.
>> 
>> Hey there. This is really fascinating, because now that we’ve been told that Heaven’s Biggest No No, their “most sacred oath,” is an angel lying with a human… it really puts A LOT of Castiel’s… reticence? Is that a good word for it? Hesitation, maybe? Or stand-offishness?
>> 
>> Whatever. It puts his long history of keeping Dean at arm’s length (metaphorically, if not physically… personal space, Cas) in perspective.
>> 
>> (oh gosh I’ve got 7.01 on in the background and I’m watching Cas return the souls to purgatory and the whole sad conversation with Dean about apologizing and redeeming himself and… oh no..)
>> 
>> Where was I? Right.
>> 
>> I wonder how hard he’s been shoving down his “illegal” feelings for Dean. Feelings that could literally get him killed for even expressing them, let alone acting on them?
>> 
>> It seems entirely plausible, no?
> 
> Oh gosh, @medeah asked me about this ages ago and I said I’d put something together and then forgot because it was like 5 minutes before everyone began arriving for my Lord of the Rings marathon. >.> I love the new context we got which explains why Cas would hold back but here’s some stuff I cobbled together at the time before we had it confirmed SO loudly that this is like the Ultimate Taboo for angels…
> 
> medeah  
> Hi, Lizzy! […] I would really like to know your thoughts about Cas’s sexuality and if there is really a possibility that he can have a relationship of that nature with Dean (given of course that the show has the courage to do something like that, but I refuse to lose hope). I think that while there’s no doubt that Cas loves Dean, I don’t know if he could exactly feel sexual desire towards him, he already has said that he finds sex  “boring” (along with wars, the repetition) but then again he hadn’t experience it first-hand yet, not until April and now he could at least remember how that feels (unless something like the pb and jelly sandwich happens and as much as he wants to feel that again he is simply unable to do it being an angel and all) I’ve read somewhere that Cas could be demi sexual, my impression is that while he doesn’t loathe the idea, he isn’t exactly feel incline to have sexual relationships, not like Dean (I rewatched S05X03, the “personal space” scene, and Dean is so blatantly flirting with Cas at the point of make me think that if Cas had understand all that references, glances and Dean’s body language, they would have ended up in bed, right there, ugh!) but since Cas can’t say no to Dean and thinking that  it could make him happy, he would agree to have sex with him, progressing into somewhat an acquired taste?. Hope this isn’t too long or too inarticulate, or too in the wrong place, I don’t know what I’m doing ;)
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> […] I agree Cas is demisexual and portrayed as such. I also think if the SHOW decides to hook up Dean n Cas they’re really not going to pay that more than lip service if they were 100% committed to Destiel, they’re just not super sensitive to things like that :P
> 
> I think that Cas has shown attraction to Dean though, maybe not as consistently as Dean checking him out but there are moments [quick elaboration now I’m not preparing for a party: the first one that jumped to mind was in 6x18 which for some reason was on my mind, a couple of people caught Cas really eyeing him up and Dean flirting but it’s sort of hidden in the background especially that Dean seems to be looking at Cas -
> 
>  <http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/141562344965> 
> 
> That’s right at the end of the episode when Dean’s in his hot new cowboy outfit and there’s another gifset which sadly has frozen after a new round of Tumblr borking everything, catching Cas’s smile at the very last moment before Dean puts on the cowboy hat, all of which looks really flirty and of course implicates Cas in it :P 
> 
> I also in the course of not-answering this properly stumbled on this gifset which is obviously exaggerated with other gifs:
> 
> <http://destiel-is-love-cockles-is-life.tumblr.com/post/145275281965/its-not-that-often-that-we-see-cas-checking-dean>
> 
> But does include a comment that in the actual canon gif Cas still seems to be checking Dean out:
> 
> 10x03 is an interesting one because Dean invites Cas in, basically, and it seems a moment where Dean is the more receptive to a relationship (immediately post demon!Dean and some serious life perspective), but Cas bottles out and picks duty and more work with Heaven over Dean. There’s the infamous bed-clearing (dir. Jensen Ackles) which if you went into the episode all pumped full of the narrative negative space bed eta from season 9, from 9x14 where Dean had his Side and it was implied the other was empty and waiting, and here he is with a cluttered other side of the bed he starts clearing when Cas is in the room… really really suggests he was about to proposition Cas to stay with him. In light of 12x10 the fact that Cas switches gears to want to return to his work with Hannah and get the fuck away from Dean before he just tackles him onto the bed, books or not… Yeah :P I feel like 12x10 subtly confirms for me Cas’s attraction in scenarios like this one where the burden was on Cas to make a move/accept a proposition, and he, well, recoils and leaves.
> 
> (There’s some people who missed season 10 in fandom and all the flaility about this - when I went back in my 10x03 tag I found a lot of references to this moment but no gifset… I’m still 6 episodes off in my rewatch and intend to make one, but for now here’s a crappy tiny gif of after Dean peeled away from talking nose to nose with Cas to start tidying - 
> 
> I capped it using a program without sound so I can’t remember wtf dialogue corresponds to this but I’m fairly sure it’s before Cas says anything about leaving.)
> 
> Honestly though, despite how the acting for Cas is routinely more “madly in love” than “extremely turned on in your presence” there’s stuff like that whole “at least I don’t look like a lumberjack” nonsense that suggests Cas is well aware of how Dean looks and has some ideas about how aesthetically pleasing he is or not… Combined with how it’s easy to read Cas as in love with Dean, the fact he’s developing standards about how Dean looks is fairly amusing to me. 
> 
> Also there’s the time Cas was human and now we have hindsight that this is maybe the one time Cas DIDN’T feel stuck with that sacred oath it’s all the more interesting… He’s pretty bitchy to Dean in 9x06 because of being a jilted lover, but in 9x09 he’s outrageously flirty, 
> 
> and has picked hunting as a profession and in like 1 episode flat screen time accelerated right through the process of trying to live a normal human life (the Dean and Lisa parallel) to I guess the whole “what’s it like settling down with a hunter” mindset :P In that case if we use the tried and tested hunting = dating metaphor, Dean has to turn down Cas’s strong advances, but it’s not like Cas isn’t flirting in the first place without any of the narrative or set stuff to back it up (and yes there’s set stuff too :P)]
> 
> There are more obvious implications though [which aren’t really coming from Cas so much as the show implying there is/could be a sexual element to Cas’s interest in Dean, but like I said about them not really caring about the distinction between love and sex when it comes to personal identity, in a storytelling way, implication can mean just as much in a sort of telling instead of showing way, as in, they might just make these jokes or serious implications as just something people say/they show as a suggestion, but because it’s been layered into the story so much, at least from a writing POV it’s a real part of how Cas feels to the WRITERS even if these things didn’t come directly from Cas… By repeating it enough there’s a narrative that Cas is interested in Dean regardless of how much that’s shown in canon]
> 
> In 11x02 when the angels torture Cas they’re implying he has a sexual relationship with Dean, and it’s one of those why say it if it’s not at least an element of the story (in the sense Cas could have the potential) [hi, hindsight Lizzy again - and 12x10 makes it a STRONG element of the story that angels loving humans is such a no-no, making the choice of these angels back in 11x02 to specifically threaten Cas’s genitals, all that more intriguing because now we KNOW there’s a taboo about it, it’s clearer than ever this is what the angels meant by that and that they’re accusing Cas of breaking that oath - the confrontation probably mirrors the 12x10 one to Akobel although I will have to watch them side by side to comment >.>]
> 
> There’s lots of other things in this bracket that come from stuff characters imply or joke about them, which is less serious but still does the same basic work - outside judgements on Cas’s interest in Dean which just go so far but there are SO MANY of them that there’s a very persistent narrative regardless that it’s just what people think, that it ends up occupying two layers of “other people’s judgement of what Cas feels about Dean” and “the list of people implying he’s into Dean” which we can easily take as read after it’s been said so many times. I mean, that’s a lot of the earlier seasons subtext right there; the jokes about their relationship are almost all in a very specific block of the show. “Blow me, Cas” “Cas get out of my ass” etc have similar implications from Dean… you can file that under Dean projecting or Dean lashing out or whatever but essentially Dean understands at least some aspect of his relationship with Cas to have the potential for a sexual relationship. 
> 
> The 5x18 one always interests me because of the parallels of Dean lashing out at Bobby for not being his father, Sam for the very specific issues of faith/trust in his brother tailored to THEIR current argument, and then all these sexual barbs at Cas. Makes you wonder if he’s tailoring the other insults to the recipient why he lands on that for Cas :P He has a lot of weird reactions to Cas when it comes to personal space and all that in the early seasons, and calls Cas creepy a few times - it’s written off as Cas’s lack of people skills, and you can throw in more of Dean projecting, but Cas DOES have a strong interest in him one way or another, and treats him differently so there’s a lot of room to suggest Dean was at least picking up some vibe from Cas he didn’t know what to make of. I’m not sure I would say it WAS sexual so early on (I would agree it could be romantic) but it’s part of a lot of implications and stuff in a writing way rather than a character way they build on to later start seriously telling us Cas is in love.
> 
> In season 9 they REALLY worked on that and I am reminded of the “Cas’s fake Heaven is pictures of naked Dean” nonsense… Again not really something Cas DOES but something implied about him. It was cut but I think 11x02 re-introduces the same ideas of 9x22 (gosh I wonder who is responsible for that :P) with the ANGELS making the judgement on Cas that he’s sexually interested in Dean, while also telling us he’s in love, and the LOVE part of it is definitely supported repeatedly by pretty much all the events in season 9. 
> 
> While I’m a huge fan of ace!Cas, and it makes sense still especially judging him against how the other angels behave, Dabb especially has been involved in crafting a fairly long game to show us how the angels feel about Dean and Cas being in love… With 12x10 I now really really think that this is also telling us that Cas WOULD be interested but has been keeping to that oath at least with far more restraint and self-punishment than many angels. Which lets us have our cake and eat it with ace!Cas behaviour vs other angels’ behaviour, but also Cas’s growing interest in Dean as it becomes a “problem” to Heaven I guess also something Cas struggles with more and creates the strong reactions the angels have to him and Dean, because it just makes sense he’d be in conflict to this. There’s a great meta about the forbidden love aspect this introduces for Cas that I reblogged after that episode.
> 
> Anyway I think the Cas in actual romantic love with Dean subtext is powerful enough that the question of sexuality is more of a fandom question to wonder about the dynamics of it… If the show wanted to put them together, we already have enough evidence of romantic interest from Cas and sexual & romantic interest from Dean that’s obvious. The more nuanced reading I guess would be for us :P I think in this case society sucking at differentiating between love and attraction as a split model works in our favour. >.> 

 

 

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn 10.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.03) [spn 9.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.09) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	55. Chapter 55

(pretty sure this post has already been archived either in the Grand Unification post or else in the Handprint post, but it should be here too)

 

#  [We’re down the Bunny Hole…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157283463025/were-down-the-bunny-hole)

[Feb 15, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157283463025/were-down-the-bunny-hole)

89 notes

I was just watching 8.03 again, and Sam and Dean’s final talk with Betsy/Eleanor here made me sit up and pay attention:

> SAM: When did you find out about this?  
> MRS HOLMES: Not until I began to age and – and Brick – Kelly, as he was when I met him – did not.  **But by that time, Brick himself had changed… inside. He wasn’t just the warrior whose only reason for living was combat. He – we were deeply, deeply in love. So in love, I’m ashamed to say, that when I found out that – how my husband stayed young and strong, I chose to ignore it.**  
>  SAM: You and Brick had to go underground from time to time to hide your secret, right?  
> MRS HOLMES: Every ten years or so, he would, uh, re-emerge with a new look, a new name. And me, I was the wife, and I was the woman in hiding, and then, when I got into my forties, I became Brick’s mother. Eleanor. I am so tired. You can’t imagine the burden of it all. I think even Brick was through. He could see the end of my days were at hand, and…  **He had lived centuries all alone, but I don’t think he could bear the thought of life without me**. That’s why he drove off that bridge. You must think I’m a monster.  
> DEAN: No. No, just that you married one. Well, see, here’s the deal. Now there are eight killers out there that we have to deal with, not just one.  
> MRS HOLMES: I don’t think so.  
> SAM: What? Why not?  
> MRS HOLMES:  **Brick used to say the heart was key. That was the focus of the sacrifice.**  
>  DEAN: Are you saying that if we stop Brick’s beating heart, then we could stop the whole thing?  
> MRS HOLMES nods.

*bolding mine, obviously*

And in the previous episode, 8.02, we had Heaven’s Most Adorable Angel– Alfie/Samandriel– tell us “too much heart was always Castiel’s problem.” Tying Cas to heart imagery… and I know this was meta-established back when these episodes originally aired, but I think this is still evolving now in s12. I’ve got so many tags for love-related themes (and even the opening song for s9 was “Who do you love.” I mean… they’re hammering hearts and love and love into us as major ongoing themes. Here, for reference purposes:

  * [here have my belated thoughts on the whole love… and love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/here%20have%20my%20belated%20thoughts%20on%20the%20whole%20love...%20and%20love) (general love stuff)
  * [Grand Unification via Love Theory](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Grand%20Unification%20via%20Love%20Theory) (aka how I called basically all of s11 and am still gloating about that fact)
  * [follow your heart dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/follow%20your%20heart%20dean) (s11 pining meta mostly)
  * [because why not maybe the lock and key are a function of hands and hearts](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because%20why%20not%20maybe%20the%20lock%20and%20key%20are%20a%20function%20of%20hands%20and%20hearts) (a lot of the s11 hearts metas were also tied to the hands metas), most of those things are also filed under [and hands and hearts are part of that i’ll just slap it on here anyway](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and%20hands%20and%20hearts%20are%20part%20of%20that%20i'll%20just%20slap%20it%20on%20here%20anyway)
  * [this season’s getting handsy](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this%20season's%20getting%20handsy) (which i’ve recently resurrected because it seems like it’s becoming relevant again in s12)



Okay, now back to  then we see [this sign on the strip club](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fdisplayimage.php%3Falbum%3D160%26pid%3D186542%23top_display_media&t=NTJlODgxODRiMmZkMjVmMWExNTNkN2FiOWUzZDY4OTEyYjA5NmMwZSx2emJhRE1BMQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F157283463025%2Fwere-down-the-bunny-hole&m=1) where they’d tracked Randa, who was in possession of Brick’s heart:

The Bunny Hole. Which in light of 12.11 makes me think of all the “Down the rabbit hole” references. ([and Dean with an actual bunny](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157164461935/lemondropsonice-the-my-little-random-moments-of))

I mean… the first time I saw that strip club sign I tied all those references back to Purgatory.. “Misty Love,” “Exotic Angel Fire,” “Brandy Fox.” Tell me Dean’s not the Fox in that metaphor, eluding capture by the hounds of Purgatory while he tried to escape with his Exotic Angel? Aah, misty love…

But the bunny… and s12… and the extension of the hands and hearts and love and love themes all through s9, s10, and s11… combined with Brick giving up his immortality for a “forbidden love.” I mean…

okaaaaay.

Because what question has been posed to Cas all down this line? What are you, an angel or a man? Who are you? Where do you belong? What choice would you make? Who do you love?

And these same questions are being posed to Dean in 12.11. Who are you? Who do you love? WHAT ARE YOU? What is family? 

This is still a major theme in the narrative. We’re still down the bunny hole.

 

 

[spn 8.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.03) [spn 12.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.11) [BUDDY THE BUNNY!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/BUDDY-THE-BUNNY%21) [here have my belated thoughts on the whole love... and love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/here-have-my-belated-thoughts-on-the-whole-love...-and-love) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [grand unification via love theory](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/grand-unification-via-love-theory) [this season's getting handsy](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-season%27s-getting-handsy) [because why not maybe the lock and key are a function of hands and hearts](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-why-not-maybe-the-lock-and-key-are-a-function-of-hands-and-hearts)

 


	56. Chapter 56

[Feb 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157358843595/dean-and-cas-met-in-a-barn-cas-said-i-love-u-in-a)

178 notes

**Anonymous asked: Dean and cas met in a barn. Cas said I love u in a barn I'm deceased**

OH NO. OH GOSH. 

He almost died in a barn but he was saved because bright explodey lights.

(Misha even tweeted that when a demon dies in the script it’s referred to as “Sparking Out.” I guess that was the sparking… heck. is that whole scene a parallel to 4.01? GAH.)

(they HAVE to have the wedding in a barn now, don’t they…)

(well, i mean technically they already had a touching moment in a barn that kinda sorta was like Dean… well, not quite a proposal, but a declaration of intentions, when Dean handed Cas the first blade in a barn in 10.14, effectively breaking up with Crowley. Like the Bachelor handing over a rose or some nonsense. And I don’t even watch that show, but that’s what it felt like…)

Aah, the Destiel-In-Barns saga. 

Definitely getting married in a barn now.

 

 

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 4.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.01) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	57. Chapter 57

[Feb 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157360971970/so-i-wanna-talk-about-the-i-love-you-moment)

126 notes

**[destielonfire](http://destielonfire.tumblr.com/) asked: So I wanna talk about the "I love you" moment because Duh ;) Even though it's pretty clear to me that he said it to Dean first and then to everyone else (or at least that we're supposed to interpret it that way), do you think DEAN understood? Does he finally realise the depth of Cas's feelings for him? Or do you think he still believes Cas meant it "like a brother and nothing more"?**

Oh god I hope so.

The camera lingering on Dean after Cas said that first “I love you” certainly gave us the impression that Dean understood.

I AM JUST SO HAPPY FOR CAS THOUGH! HE FINALLY GETS IT, THAT HE BELONGS WITH THEM, THAT IT’S ///HIM/// THAT THEY CARE ABOUT AND WANT AROUND.

HE’S FAMILY! And the bunker is HOME.

But… there’s still that whole matter of Heaven’s Most Sacred Oath hanging over their entire thing…

And I think that’s a part of why Dean was so cavalier about his “teachable moment” having Cas flirt with Mandy… BECAUSE DEAN KNOWS NOTHING’S GONNA COME OF IT, BECAUSE MOST SACRED OATH.

But it certainly gave DEAN a chance to act innocently flirty with Cas HIMSELF.

“My devastatingly handsome friend here”

Cas actually SNIFFED HER. Oh my god.

Dean certainly wasn’t “flirting with intent” with Mandy, but he wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to use her as a proxy to flirt with Cas…

But none of that, even love confessions, make that most sacred oath go away. And Dean knows that. 

Now I’m just waiting for the episode later where Dean says those words back. It’s a statement that demands a reply, after all. Dean’s gotta take some time to let the gravity of Cas’s confession really sink in first…

 

 

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [destielonfire](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destielonfire)


	58. Chapter 58

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my comments on a post by thevioletcaptain/imogenbynight

[Feb 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157362021645/thevioletcaptain-regarding-this-post-which-i)

395 notes

[thevioletcaptain](http://thevioletcaptain.tumblr.com/post/157346484338/regarding-this-post-which-i-cant-add-comments-to):

> Regarding [this post](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/knittymcknitpants/157345657172) (which I can’t add comments to because it’s a chat post)
> 
> I think it’s actually kind of the opposite. The “I love all of you” only made the initial “I love you” noticeably singular. Without it, the first “I love you” could easily have been interpreted as applying generally. 
> 
> Separating them only serves to show that there’s a difference in the person/people he’s addressing and also a difference in the love he feels. 
> 
> After all, if Cas felt the same platonic love for all of them, there’d have been no need to mention them separately. The first “I love you” would have covered them all.
> 
> But it didn’t. And there’s no way in hell that it was unintentional.

That’s the difference between the whole love… and love.

He’s in love… with humanity (or he did it all just for one man).

He sides with the Winchesters over heaven (but threw away his army for Dean Winchester)

He needed to be reprogrammed to be ready to kill… thousands of copies of DEAN… but when faced with doing just that he broke…

*brb flinging self into the sun now*

 

 

[spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [yes to all of this ^^](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yes-to-all-of-this-%5E%5E) [here have my belated thoughts on the whole love... and love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/here-have-my-belated-thoughts-on-the-whole-love...-and-love) [i mean that's what we were literally given here... the DIFFERENCE between LOVE and love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-that%27s-what-we-were-literally-given-here...-the-DIFFERENCE-between-LOVE-and-love) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	59. Chapter 59

[Feb 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157368450240/something-i-havent-seen-anyone-talking-about-is)

168 notes

**Anonymous asked: Something I haven't seen anyone talking about is just how insane it is that Crowley saved Cas. That lance is one of the only things in the universe that can kill lucifer, and do it slowly and painfully too. Crowley has lucifer at his mercy and stabbing him with the lance Michael was supposed to use against him would be the perfect revenge, and would go a long way to solidifying his position as king of hell. There's no way he wasn't thinking about that before he broke the (1/2)**

> spear. I swear, there are love triangles and then there’s Dean-Cas-Crowley. I don’t even know.

I KNOW, RIGHT? I mean, we talk about Sam playing third wheel, but Crowley…

Not to mention that we now have Dagon and Asmodeus out there, and we know Dagon is “interested” in Lucifer’s baby… And Crowley’s also destroyed possibly the ONE WEAPON that might have a shot at killing those two if they try for revenge for Ramiel’s death (well, aside from the Colt, and now you should know WHY Crowley was so desperate to get his hands on it at the end of the episode. He’d basically handed Ramiel the TWO weapons on earth that could kill him, and Ramiel had made Crowley promise that ALL of them be left alone in exchange for the throne…)

How many times now has Crowley had to come to their defense, whether they know it or not (because they had no idea how Crowley had gone directly to Ramiel to plead their case and ask for mercy…), Crowley has stuck his neck out for them time and again.

Breaking that lance was a risky move. Yes, he saved Cas, indebted himself to the Winchesters YET AGAIN (and boy there are shades of Meg’s “the one angel who’d be willing to go to bat for me” from s7 here), but in the process he had to destroy the ONE WEAPON that might potentially be able to KILL LUCIFER ONCE AND FOR ALL… and yikes, that leaves Crowley himself in quite a pickle…

And WHY would he chose to put himself in that position, as the “slimy” and grasping King of Hell? He has a weakness…

Gah he’s like the sad loser in the love triangle who has nothing left but to pine away and do everything he can to make sure his loves are happy… just stab me with a lance or something and leave me to rot

 

 

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [crowley](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/crowley) [worst ship on the show](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/worst-ship-on-the-show) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	60. Chapter 60

[Feb 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157378089715/as-a-social-experiment-i-made-the-bf-watch-the)

36 notes

**[spacecomrades](http://spacecomrades.tumblr.com/) asked: As a social experiment I made the bf watch the episode. He used to watch the show but has long since stopped. He knows I ship destiel. I said cas told dean he loved him and he said ok but did he mean it like that so I said watch for yourself. His first reaction was that it didn't seem like he was saying it to dean cause he looked down. I pointed out the obvious (cut to dean, I love all of you etc) and he finally just said maybe. I thought it was interesting to see what he thought from a dif pov**

Interesting. But Dean was looking down because Cas chose this moment to tell him. And if nothing else Cas had said had convinced Dean that Cas REALLY was gonna die, confessing his love would do it. It was a double-edged sword.

Dying declarations of love aren’t moments for joy, you know? Dean couldn’t bear it. I’d look down too.

And then Cas added the “I love all of you,” And Dean’s eyes sprang up to him, because THAT was the moment he really got it. That was the difference.

Notice Cas couldn’t look Dean in the eye for the “I love you” either. Because it was too freaking heavy for him in that moment, but Dean deserved to hear the words.

It was not only a love confession, but also that heartbreaking moment where it feels like it’s come too late and there’s nothing anyone can do about it now.

Combine that moment with the stunned look Dean has THE ENTIRE TIME HE’S HELPING CAS STAND UP AFTER HE’S MIRACULOUSLY HEALED

There’s just a tinge of HOLY SHIT HE’S NOT DEAD AND HE LOVES ME WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GONNA DO WITH THIS NOW?!

I mean, have you SEEN [this gif set](http://canonspngifs.tumblr.com/post/157347452897)? 

If anybody out there STILL can’t see it… I mean… 

 

 

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [even mr mittens sees it now ffs](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/even-mr-mittens-sees-it-now-ffs)[spacecomrades](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spacecomrades)


	61. Chapter 61

[Feb 19, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157428499765/i-dont-know-how-the-write-did-it-but-while)

161 notes

**Anonymous asked: I don't know how the write did it but while watching 12x12, I got flashbacks to pretty much every big Destiel moment in existence: 7x01 Black goo and Leviathan, 6x20 holy fire and "Run", 4x23 "I'll hold them all off", Purgatory "Thank you for everything", 8x17 "You're my family" etc. 12x12 sure wad a wild ride.**

Aah, I know! That sort of thing’s been happening a lot lately, hasn’t it? I’m still waiting for the transcript of 12.11 to post, because I want to make a study of all the references in that episode, too.

But I just finished typing up the transcript to 12.12 (it should be up on the superwiki within a day or two, hopefully), and I struggled to get through it because I had to keep stopping to look up references (not for the transcript, but because I JUST HAD TO KNOW for myself. it was an ordeal :P)

(I just spent the last 20 minutes rereading the transcript and having horrible feelings again… so thanks for that… )

The main episodes I got MAJOR feeling about in this one are 6.18, 6.19, and 6.20. I mean…

6.18 Things (not even just destiel things, but parallels)

  * the music– The three Federales songs from 6.18 are used throughout..
  * the Colt (hey that’s the last time Dean used it! 1861!)
  * Colt’s journal, which had been in Samuel Campbell’s library
  * Cas is wounded in the side… Pretty much the same spot actually….



6.19:

  * The diner scene
  * they’re all relatively powerless against Ramiel
  * there’s a much bigger, deeper secret that Sam and Dean weren’t in on back in 6.19, and in 12.12, Cas is ALSO in the dark along with them… (and even Crowley is, to a certain extent)



6.20:

please don’t make me cry again tonight. it’s late…

I had some idea of where I was going with this when I started, but…

ACK! And “thank you, for everything,” wasn’t just Purgatory, it was also 11.23.

I’d come up with more, but I’ve officially been working on this post for the last 45 minutes already >.>

 

 

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [s12 as s6 redux](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-as-s6-redux) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	62. Chapter 62

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my comments on a post by obsessionisaperfume with comments by thevioletcaptain

#  [Schrödinger’s “you”](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157472720080/schr%C3%B6dingers-you)

[Feb 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157472720080/schr%C3%B6dingers-you)

804 notes

[obsessionisaperfume](http://obsessionisaperfume.tumblr.com/post/157470811997/schr%C3%B6dingers-you):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157469396250/schr%C3%B6dingers-you):
>
>> [thevioletcaptain](http://thevioletcaptain.tumblr.com/post/157421788808/schr%C3%B6dingers-you):
>>
>>> [obsessionisaperfume](http://obsessionisaperfume.tumblr.com/post/157419280052/schr%C3%B6dingers-you):
>>>
>>>> [@awed-frog](https://tmblr.co/myXYn5QAGQtP3DRI5gEV77Q) has [meta on translating the “you”](http://obsessionisaperfume.tumblr.com/post/157402939212/stuck-in-translation) in 12.12, and I agree that plural “you” is most likely, given the surrounding dialog.
>>>> 
>>>> But that’s the thing about the English word–you  _must_  have context to determine whether it’s singular or plural.  You can’t just go by the dialog.  Unfortunately, the visual context in this case is subtle enough that, though it leans toward the singular, it can also be read as plural.
>>>> 
>>>> I think this is one of those places where, should Destiel go inarguably canon, people are gonna look back on it and give themselves the V8 head smack.
>>>> 
>>>> Coming from the South, I read the first “you” as plural UNTIL we got the second sentence.  Where I grew up, if you have to specifically include “all,” at least one of the referents is singular.  “Y’all come in this house right now,” means just what it says–all of you.  (Just a side note: y’all is  _always_  plural.  ALWAYS.)  But if you then say, “and I mean all y’all,” you are talking about a specific person (or sometimes, a group, but that’s less common in my experience) who might not consider themselves part of “y’all.”  When Cas says, “I love all of you,” my interpretation of the first “you” gets changed to a singular by default.
>>>> 
>>>> This is not a universal construction, though, so it can still be read as both being plural.  Want I want to do is look at the editing choices and how they affect the reading of that first “you.”
>>>> 
>>>> It’s firmly established that there are three different eyelines when we are focusing on Cas.  Sam is on the left side of your screen, Dean is in the middle, and Mary is to the right.
>>>> 
>>>> Most of this clip is directed at Dean.  There are short glances to both Sam and Mary, though.  This is how his gaze shifts:
>>>> 
>>>> The first thank you is to Dean.  Side glance to Mary and back to Dean for second thank you.  “Knowing you” to  Sam, “has been the best part” to Dean, “of my life,” to Sam.  To first Mary and then Sam on “and the things”, back to Dean on “the things”, “we have shared together” to Sam, “They have changed me” to Dean.  Reaction shot from Mary off pained groan, reaction shot from Dean.
>>>> 
>>>> “You’re my family” to Dean, then to Sam, to Dean, to Mary before the next line.
>>>> 
>>>> “I love you,” he’s looking down, he can’t meet anyone’s eyes, but his glance flicks slightly towards Dean.  Reaction shot from Dean.  ONLY from Dean.  “I love all of you” still looking down, then glance to Sam, then to Dean.  Reaction shot from Dean. Reaction shot from Sam.
>>>> 
>>>> Note that though he looked at Sam first after, “I love all of you,” the first reaction shot we get is from Dean.
>>>> 
>>>> I left out the clip of Cas telling them to run, to save themselves, because that was a continuous shift between the other three, and is very clearly directed at all of them.
>>>> 
>>>> Dean says, “No, Cas.”  Cas says, “Yes.  You need to keep fighting,” to Dean.  Sam says, “We are fighting, we’re fighting for you, Cas.”  And the shot pulls back from close-up. I’m not entirely certain, but I think Cas’ reaction to that is first to Sam, then to Dean.  His reaction to “we don’t leave family behind” is entirely to Dean.
>>>> 
>>>> So, most of these three exchange is with Dean, and Sam and Mary are acknowledged when Cas is being deliberately inclusive.
>>>> 
>>>> The word “you” may be ambiguously plural or singular, but the editing definitely suggests that first “I love you” is directed solely at Dean.  That’s why he had to specify “all.”
>>> 
>>> This is pretty much my reading of the whole scene, and I’m so glad someone else put it into coherent words, because I’ve been struggling to do so :P
>>> 
>>> Though I can understand the  _reasoning_  behind why some people might see both as plural, everything about the way this was directed and edited and acted makes it kinda impossible for me to agree with that interpretation. 
>>> 
>>> I feel like forcing myself to see both as plural requires ignoring/discounting too many factors, y’know?
>>> 
>>> Also–while I obviously read Castiel’s love for Dean as romantic in nature, I didn’t see this as a “love confession” in that sense. The romantic love is only one layer of what they have, after all. They’re friends, they’re family, they’re brothers in arms. I don’t think there’s a kind of love they don’t have some shade of between them.
>>> 
>>> So while I don’t think he was aiming to let Dean know that he’s in love with him, and I don’t think Dean has realized that Cas feels that way*, I  _do_  think he wanted to place greater emphasis on his relationship with Dean.
>>> 
>>> After all, it’s well established that his relationship with Dean runs deeper than his relationship with… well, pretty much everyone. Dean’s reaction when Cas says “I love all of you” seems to show that the message was received.
>> 
>> Yes.
>> 
>> And not only this, but the fact that, in an episode that drew HEAVILY from references to past canon (and really, what episode HASN’T lately), it’s impossible to look just at this one scene out of the context of so many other past examples of this exact sort of composition:
>> 
>> From 10.22:
>>
>>> **Castiel** : Maybe you could fight the mark for years, maybe centuries like Cain did. But you cannot fight it forever, and when you finally turn, and you will turn, Sam and  **everyone you know, everyone you love, they could be long dead. Everyone except me**.
>> 
>> Plural… and clarification with the singular.
>> 
>> From 8.17 (do I even need to mention this one? Is it not patently obvious?):
>>
>>> **Dean:**  This isn’t you. Cas, I know you’re in there. I know you can hear me. Cas, it’s me. We’re family.  **We need you; I need you.**
>> 
>> Plural… and clarification with the singular.
>> 
>> From 9.22 (the obvious because it’s also penned by Dabb… who is now steering this boat):
>>
>>> **METATRON:** So? Well, that’s an old writer’s trick – flipping the script. You start by building up a seemingly unbeatable enemy, like the death star, or a rival angel with a bigger army. That way, I look like the underdog. But then, oh, no! The competition gets greedy. He starts pushing things too much. With the help of my combustible double agents. And then, after a rousing speech, his true weakness is revealed. He’s in love… with humanity.
>> 
>> That LOOOOONG pause before the “with humanity” that had all of us collectively gagging at how idiotic Metatron could be… but then one episode later we get:
>>
>>> **METATRON** : No, no, this is a story, Neil, a marvelous story, full of love and heartbreak and…love.
>> 
>> Because that 9.22 quote was the love and heartbreak, but he gets to the love by the end of 9.23, Metatron throws the truth out when it’s primed to cause the most pain for Cas:
>>
>>> **METATRON** : Ah. So Gadreel bites the dust. And the Angel tablet – arguably the most powerful instrument in the history of the universe – is in pieces, and for what again? Oh, that’s right – to save Dean Winchester. That was your goal, right? I mean, you draped yourself in the flag of heaven, but ultimately, it was all about saving one human, right? Well, guess what. He’s dead, too.
>> 
>> But taken together with what he’d said in 9.22, this also serves the same narrative function as the singular vs plural construction. He’s in love with humanity… but it’s all about this one human…
>> 
>> Trying to look at just that scene in 12.12, or just that one episode, in a vacuum and ignoring everything leading up to it is just… I mean, I read justification for it along the lines of “well, that’s how the general audience is interpreting it, so that’s the standard by which we should interpret it,” or something to that effect, and I call bullshit on that.
>> 
>> I’m sorry, but this is a continuing narrative that refers back to itself in every other respect. To say, “well, they might be mirroring the major themes of s6 in s12, but there’s no way they’re mirroring THIS SPECIFIC THING because REASONS is just… GAH I AM TOO FRUSTRATED TO EVEN FIND AN APPROPRIATE NON-INSULTING SOUNDING WORD FOR WHAT IT IS.
>> 
>> So the fandom hems and haws over how to “interpret” what to me looks like a very straightforward set of lines. I love you. (singular) I love all of you. (plural)
>> 
>> Read that however you will, but IN CONTEXT, it means something inarguable.
> 
> Mittens’ tags:
>
>> #wherein mittens finally cracks to the dismay of everyone#here have my belated thoughts on the whole love… and love#and frankly i couldn’t give a rat’s ass how it gets translated into other languages because it’s freaking irrelevant#the scheherazade of supernatural#this scene does not exist in a freaking vacuum so stop treating it like it does ffs#yes they could come right out and make grand confessions of romantic love with direct and actual words and kiss on the mouth#and there would STILL be people arguing about this sort of shit and it’s just irritating and stupid#it’s an ongoing story and it’s agonizingly being handed to us in tiny tiny pieces like this BUT IT IS BEING HANDED TO US#and frankly I AM ENJOYING THE GLACIAL PACE OF IT because it’s full of enough angst without piling on with grammar debates
> 
> THANK YOU MITTENS.
> 
> I am wondering if we’re going to see more inversions like this, where the heteronormative interpretation is the one you have to dig into the subtext to find.  
> 
> Because the fact that they cut from Cas saying, “I love you,” TO DEAN and then right back to Cas is all you need, from a film grammar perspective, to read that as Cas speaking directly to Dean.  

After I popped my noggin on that bit there, I forgot what’s possibly the very first instance of this phenomenon, from way back in 4.16:

> **CASTIEL** : I was getting too close to the humans in my charge. You. They feel I’ve begun to express emotions. The doorways to doubt. This can impair my judgment. 

The HUMANS in my charge, meaning YOU, DEAN SINGULAR WINCHESTER, i.e. THE ONLY HUMAN PRESENT IN THE ROOM.

Two episodes before Cas commits his first true act of defiance against heaven in 4.18 by giving Dean a bit of information that helps him subvert a “prophecy.”

And four episodes before Heaven judges Castiel to have been compromised enough to haul him back upstairs for a torture/reprogramming session in 4.20.

Six episodes before he throws in with Dean to rip up the pages and try to avert the apocalypse by any means necessary.

Doorways to doubt. It’s sort of the entire history of Castiel’s character arc.

 

 

[spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 4.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.16) [here have my belated thoughts on the whole love... and love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/here-have-my-belated-thoughts-on-the-whole-love...-and-love) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [i did say it was glacial...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-did-say-it-was-glacial...)

 


	63. Chapter 63

[Feb 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157494776080/i-about-died-when-mother-mary-thing-came-up)

348 notes

**Anonymous asked: I about died when MOTHER MARY thing came up (indicating that what happens next would be from Mary's pov) and Dean began to be flirty and winky at Cas. I squeed because I didn't expect Mary to focus on this kind of thing xD I mean, she was pretty much in a hunter mode.**

You know, I’ve been meaning to put these together for visual comparison, because it’s very important to understand JUST HOW DIFFERENT each pov was. These are screencaps from (in the left column) the opening diner scene, which is arguably from Castiel’s point of view. The meta was written on that just from the promo clip we got before the episode aired. Compared to the Mother Mary pov diner scene (in the right column)… well, see for yourself and then I’ll break down how I read these differences. (all screenshots lovingly borrowed from [hotn](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fthumbnails.php%3Falbum%3D273&t=ZGYyNjU1ZWQzYzJjNjc2OGU4MWQzOTU0ZTE4MDc2ZjNmMmYxYjY1MyxaSFp2OFkySw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F157494776080%2Fi-about-died-when-mother-mary-thing-came-up&m=1)):

The first row are two clips of Dean speaking the EXACT SAME LINE, where he asks Mandy when she gets off. In the left column (Cas pov), Dean prefaces that question with the line about his “shy and devastatingly handsome friend.” Dean’s acting… adorable. He’s being a goofball. He’s comfortably hunched forward, elbows resting on the table, his left hand on his coffee mug, looking up openly at Mandy.

In the version on the right, from Mary’s pov, there’s no mention of Dean’s “devastatingly handsome friend,” and ONLY the line about when Mandy gets off is included. Dean says the entire thing over the rim of his raised coffee mug, and it almost looks as if he’s leering up at her.

In the middle row are Dean’s reactions to Mandy’s response. On the left, we get more of the “adorable goofball” reaction. It’s framed as a wider shot of him, even including some of the background (the reminder that hey, yeah, there are other random people in this diner…), but it shows Dean having fun, smiling like this AT CAS.

The picture on the right shows this sort of creepily uncomfortable reading of Dean, as if he’s switched from leering at Mandy to leering at Cas… and this read is backed up by the third row of pics here.

Cas’s reaction to Mandy’s response on the left is the Cas we’re familiar with. He’s thinking about this and attempting to parse the joke, maybe with a tinge of “why do you always do this to me, Dean?” especially after he’s seen DEAN’S delight at his reaction (as illustrated in the middle row delighted, openly and happy looking Dean).

But on the right… what the heck is that face on Cas? The creepy impression I got from these reactions, FROM MARY’S POV, was that she must suspect that Dean and Cas were lining up some sort of freaky three-way with Mandy for later that night. It’s… calculated looking. Like Cas was actually in on some sort of secret code with Dean, and they were both planning to be lecherous together later…

Kinda… unsettling to think that this may be how Mary thinks of her own son and his best friend, but I think that after this episode she FINALLY has a far better understanding of both Dean and Cas, and the reality of their relationship…

I mean, the way her head snapped up to DEAN when Cas began his deathbed confessional really puts all this ^^ into perspective, doesn’t it? I think THAT was her moment of revelation, that she’d sincerely underestimated both her sons and their adopted angel…

**No, you listen to me. You– Look, thank you. Thank you. Knowing you, it… it’s been the best part of my life. And the things that… [inhales sharply] the things we’ve shared together, they have changed me.**

And at that moment, Mary turns to Dean with this look:

 

 

 

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [i swear i'm still trying to sort out the different pov's](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-swear-i%27m-still-trying-to-sort-out-the-different-pov%27s) [and i still think everything that happened in the barn is a standalone pov](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i-still-think-everything-that-happened-in-the-barn-is-a-standalone-pov) [maybe the ugly winchester plaid couch's pov](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/maybe-the-ugly-winchester-plaid-couch%27s-pov) [yeah let's go with that sofa pov ftw](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yeah-let%27s-go-with-that-sofa-pov-ftw) [making the 'a real barn burner' title card segment entirely from the sofa's pov...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/making-the-%27a-real-barn-burner%27-title-card-segment-entirely-from-the-sofa%27s-pov...) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)


	64. Chapter 64

[Feb 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157495318665/im-loving-s12but-crowley-and-selfless-love)

12 notes

**Anonymous asked: I'm loving S12,But, Crowley and selfless love, don't work for me. I don't like that Crowley is making, sacrifices, that can be read as "the same things Cas did" Are they trying to downplay Cas? or put Crowley at his "level"? that in the end they will be the same, and Dean will need to choose?I feel it hurt Destiel a bit or maybe it is my aversion for love triangles.What do you think?**

I don’t think this can be read as “the same things Cas did.” And they are absolutely NOT trying to downplay Cas.

Crowley has long played the role of foil to both Dean and Cas. Cas has been “the angel on Dean’s shoulder” longer, but since he showed up on the scene in 5.10, Crowley’s been angling to be the demon on Dean’s other shoulder..

Then in s6 he tried to eliminate the middle man and partner up directly with Cas.

Without rehashing Crowley’s entire character arc since s5, I’ll just sum up:

Especially beginning at the end of s8, Crowley’s been fundamentally changed. He’s been violently reminded of his humanity, but he’s still a practical demon who will do everything he can to hold on to whatever sort of power he’s amassed for himself. After 12.12, we know just how tenuous his position really is as King of Hell, and just how easy it is have it all torn down.

He’s also the devil they know, and things might go a LOT worse for everyone if someone else were to usurp the throne…

I mean we saw Lucifer on the throne in s11, and that went… horribly for EVERYONE. I can’t imagine Dagon or Asmodeus, or even some other lackey demon on the throne would be much better.

They do have a long-standing working relationship with Crowley, and a fair understanding of how he runs things. If there has to be a Hell and demons, better to have at least someone they can count as an ally (even if a reluctant ally at times) running the joint.

BUT… there’s also the year and a half or so Dean spent with the mark of Cain. And the six weeks or so he spent “howling at the moon” with Crowley. Regardless of how you read their dynamic, SOMETHING intensely personal occurred between them during that time. Dean may have been a demon, but even he acknowledges (without really going into detail) that SOMETHING happened between them. So there is emotional baggage there.

More than this being a sign that Crowley is taking over Cas’s role in Dean’s life, I think it’s being offered as a rather sad compare/contrast between the angel and the devil.

One more way the show is inviting us to play “spot the difference.”

 

 

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [worst ship on the show](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/worst-ship-on-the-show) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	65. Chapter 65

[Feb 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157512423650/im-very-interested-to-see-where-s13-leads-cas-and)

25 notes

**Anonymous asked: I'm very interested to see where s13 leads Cas and Dean's relationship; like i know there's still a ways to go, but if s12 continues knocking down walls, i'd be interested to see a season where they're at the point where their feelings are sort of in this "out there but not out there, not spoken, thing"? Like they're in this limbo you see lot of times with tv love interests; they know, we know, everyone knows. But for whatever reason, it's not at the "let's get together" point yet.**

> (season 13 anon who just sent you an ask) I hope all that made sense lol? I think i’m trying to say i’d be interested to see their relationship go up a notch from where it has been, like a different level of awareness and not knowing what to do with it.

Yeah, I get what you’re saying here, and as someone who rewatches the entire series on a continuous loop, let me tell you that this is exactly how it already feels…

There’s nothing more jarring than watching Alpha and Omega and then going back and starting at the pilot again… and watching s4 Cas and Dean interactions having seen how far they come over time.

My current rewatch is right in the middle of s8 (I watch 4 episodes a day on TNT as the background noise to my morning activities). But it was SO FREAKING HARD to rewatch s6 and s7 while simultaneously watching 12.09, 12.10, and 12.11 and flailing about stuff in current canon.

So in that sense, there does seem to be this constant uptick in the level of  _we know they know and they know that we know that they know_. It’s just the absolute slowest possible burn of anything in the history of ever. It might not feel like they’ve progressed at all, but then you go back and watch it all again and it’s like watching a flower bloom in super slow motion.

I mean I hate to keep pointing at my own tag for this phenomenon, but it took Scheherazade 1001 nights to woo her love, and yet she told a ton of awesome stories along the way, too. I’m enjoying all the stories just as much as the overarching story of Scheherazade, so I’m okay with that as a narrative structure. :D

 

 

[spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	66. Chapter 66

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my thoughts attached to a post by cupidsbower with commentary from bold-sartorial-statement

#  [In-and-out-laws](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157617999635/in-and-out-laws)

[Feb 23, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157617999635/in-and-out-laws)

262 notes

[cupidsbower](https://cupidsbower.tumblr.com/post/157599700305/in-and-out-laws):

> [bold-sartorial-statement](http://bold-sartorial-statement.tumblr.com/post/157599427763/in-and-out-laws):
>
>> [cupidsbower](https://cupidsbower.tumblr.com/post/157598068220/in-and-out-laws):
>>
>>> Something I forgot to mention in my [review of Supernatural 12x12](https://cupidsbower.tumblr.com/post/157577455035/making-the-most-of-teachable-moments), “Stuck in the Middle (With You),” because I was super tired last night…
>>> 
>>> This episode gave us one of the most interesting plot twists in the Destiel love story we’ve ever had, and that’s saying something.
>>> 
>>> In real life, the only commonly recognised way for someone to suddenly acquire an adult “son” is via marriage, as a son-in-law. Or, if there has been no marriage yet, they might still be called a son or son-in-law (or in Aussie slang, an out-law :) to acknowledge the seriousness of the relationship.
>>> 
>>> Without that romantic tie, a close friendship between one of your children and someone else (the “brother from another mother”) does not usually translate to being openly acknowledged as another son within the family as a whole. I’m not saying that never happens, I’m saying that in our common understanding of families, “in-law” is the recognised way for an unrelated adult to enter a family. In fact, pretty much the only publicly and legally acknowledged way an unrelated adult can join a family is via marriage, which is one of the reasons marriage equality is a core concern for many queer people.
>>> 
>>> So when Mary protectively co-opts Castiel as one of her boys in that final scene, after he just confessed his forbidden love for the Winchesters, and all the special things he’s shared with Humanity/Dean… when it’s pretty clear he had to give up his original Heavenly family in order to become a Winchester (and, I might add, in a way that works as a heartbreaking thematic parallel to the homophobia and disowning that still often follows a gay union)?
>>> 
>>> Yeah, the show downplayed this subtext as much as it possibly could while still making it a central part of the episode, because of course it did, but in real life, the most obvious implication to this kind of dynamic is that Mary thinks Castiel is her son-in-law.
>>> 
>>> That is the unavoidable conclusion the (sub)text is offering us. If it can really be called subtext. As I doubt mainstream audiences recognised the implication, despite its obviousness, I guess it still is.
>>> 
>>> (Whether Dean, Castiel, or for that matter, Sam, think Castiel has married into the family is a whole other post. But whatever they think, the implication is unavoidably offered to us in this episode – Mary considers Castiel her son-in-law now.)
>> 
>> On the one hand, you’re obviously right.
>> 
>> On the other hand, found families is a huge theme in this show. Bobby considered himself Sam and Dean’s adoptive father, and he only came back into their lives when they were adults. I’m also pretty sure no formal adoption process was involved. Claire and Alex are old teens (I’m unclear on whether they’re actually over eighteen in canon or not), and Jody took them in as a foster mother, probably slightly more formally than Bobby’s adoption.
>> 
>> Family doesn’t end with blood, but it doesn’t start there, either, to quote Dean.
> 
> Yes, but all those examples you’re giving are of relationships that are directly between the characters. Bobby wasn’t suggesting he thought of Mary as a sister-in-law because he was a father figure to her sons. Castiel doesn’t see Jody as some kind of in-law because of his quasi fatherly relationship with Claire.
> 
> Mary has had a couple of conversations with Castiel, and yes, sure, feels a connection. I’d go as far as to say she considers him a friend and ally. But she wasn’t calling him one of her boys because of  _her_ relationship with him, is my point.
> 
> And “family doesn’t end with blood” actually works just as well for an in-law as it does for other kinds of found family.
> 
> ETA: Also, I meant to say, my point is not to devalue those found family relationships - they are valid. A point I alluded to in the original meta was that this is how cultural constructs like marriage work – they valorise one kind of relationship and diminish others that don’t measure up in the eyes of the mainstream/law. What’s interesting about this particular example is that, as you say, found families is such a theme on the show that the episode could successfully avoid nearly all the overt implications of “son-in-law” that in an everyday context would have been apparent to all but the most hardened homophobe. I find that interesting (although I still wish the show would get off the frigging fence instead of constantly doing this particular tap-dance).

How the show has defined these other “found family members” in canon:

Bobby, “you’re about the closest thing I have to a father,” Dean said in 4.01. Their relationship grew even closer over the next few years. In 5.01 Bobby overcame possession by a demon and chose to risk his own life (stabbing himself in the abdomen) rather than let the demon kill Dean. On his death bed, Some of Bobby’s final memories were of taking Dean to play catch in a park when Dean was a small child. His fatherly feelings toward Sam and Dean started long before they were adults, and only grew stronger as they grew up.

In one memory of his own abusive father, Bobby officially claims Sam and Dean as his own…

> Uh-huh. Well, as fate would have it, I adopted two boys, and they grew up great. They grew up heroes. So you can go to hell!

Bobby had been there for the Winchesters  _for decades_. That wasn’t a relationship that was built in a matter of weeks.

Jody has “adopted” Claire and Alex. Claire had already turned 18 (in 10.20, that’s why Cas bought her the Grumpy Cat toy, as a birthday present). Alex is likely a year or so younger than Claire in canon… But these girls have never had any sort of stable, normal, functional home environment. Their childhoods were lost due to the Supernatural.

Claire’s family was torn apart by the apocalypse. Her father had been killed by Raphael, and her mother had been captured by another rogue angel and held prisoner in her own mind for years, while Claire drifted around, powerless to do anything to reunite her family.

Alex was stolen from her only family by a group of vampires and Stockholm Syndrome’d into their service. 

Neither of these girls had any experience of being a kid, and Jody stepped up to offer them a real home, a sense of family, a little slice of what they’ve missed out on their entire lives. She offered them security and a chance to rest and to really make their own choices about the rest of their lives. Jody gave them the tools to even BEGIN to learn how to do that for themselves. She’s there for them like nobody has been in years.

Their other “found family” member this reminds me of is Charlie, “The little sister they never wanted.” And yet she IS the character we must view this familial relationship DIFFERENTLY. Because she IS canonically queer. There doesn’t NEED to be any subtext surrounding her unofficial adoption into the Winchester family.

Because like the other posters there ^^ point out, Found Families IS a common experience for queer people. And Charlie as an out lesbian character who has lost her family and spent most of her life on the run from the law, reinventing herself over and over again (even though it overtly had very little to do with her queerness), has found a family with Sam and Dean. HERS is the story TEXTUALLY of finding a family.

But consider this: If Charlie were to show up in the bunker right now, would Mary so quickly acknowledge Charlie as one of her own? What has Mary seen between her sons and this angel– this supernatural being who she doesn’t even see as truly  _human_ – what has she seen that’s made her unequivocally consider Cas to be one of her boys? Is it the care she’s seen him express while they were missing? She ordered Cas around in 12.01 as if he were some sort of attack dog…

She has witnessed Cas kill a reaper in order to save HER life, and then deliver an impassioned speech about how important they ALL are to him. Then the next time she sees him, he’s been fatally wounded because of her own deception… and she gets to see her sons fight for HIM.

She sees Dean freaking  _shout down the King of Hell_ , she watches them  _trap a yellow-eyed demon in a ring of holy fire in order to interrogate him about how to save Cas_. And then she heard Castiel’s dying declaration of family and love… and love.

She was still terrified of Castiel. I think she still  _is_  terrified of him, of what he is, the power he wields, and what he might be capable of in the name of his devotion to her boys… and yet… she recognizes  _something_ …

She may not understand it fully, but she  _knows_  there is something more there. So she claims him as one of her boys.

If the (sub)text was any louder our ears would be bleeding.

 

 

[spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [revenge of the subtext](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/revenge-of-the-subtext) [here have my belated thoughts on the whole love... and love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/here-have-my-belated-thoughts-on-the-whole-love...-and-love) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	67. Chapter 67

[Mar 10, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158249451040/hi-i-really-hope-this-is-not-a-repeat-ask-i)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi, I really hope this is not a repeat ask – I spend an ungodly time reading your wonderful blog, but my memory is useless… Anyway, when it comes to wishes for endgame, I have 3 biggest ones: Sam as a head of new American MOL, Dean and Cas hunting together and in a less ambiguous romantic relationship than say Sherlock’s finale... and Charlie, not back alive but as a kind of revolutionary of Heaven, a sort of Ash 2.0 (both ‘hackers’ and free spirits, after all). I understand why Heaven 1/2**

> Heaven has to be relatively shitty for the duration of series, but some progress there would be a pretty good endgame, I think. No need to answer this, I was just curious if you had any thoughts on it all - Heaven, Charlie etc 2/2

Ooh, hi! And I think I’ve achieved a point of blogging where everything’s a repeat ask, but if I’ve typed enough words between then and now, the answer probably will change anyway.

(yes I just described the entire plot of supernatural as a spiral narrative and then compared it to the inside of my head… er… my blog :P)

But I’m glad you enjoy spending ungodly amounts of time reading my thoughts, even if they are spiraling around endlessly (or maybe swirling down the drain depending on your pov)

(i kid i kid)

BUT YES TO SAM TAKING OVER THE REFORMED AMERICAN MEN OF LETTERS, getting back to their true mission of cataloging and understanding and preserving knowledge, lore, and respect for the supernatural. I see him standing between humanity and the supernatural as a sort of Ambassador for Understanding, because who BETTER to be in that position? REALLY?!

I don’t wanna be too on the nose about it, but it’s literally the role he was born to play… but in a nicer, not-destroying-his-agency sort of way.

As to your second point, I… don’t watch Sherlock so I have no idea how they left it, other than witnessing secondhand as an entire fandom melted down over how awful it was. I try to avoid awful. I really don’t think there’s any other plausible endgame for Dean and Cas then for the two of them to continue hunting together, Or perhaps working alongside Sam to train and prepare the next generation of Men of Letters (who are not just dudes sitting in stuffy boardrooms making decisions about stuff they never see, but who are ALSO hunters. HYBRIDS! Because sometimes a thing is greater than the sum of its parts, just like Sam and Dean are more than just hunters or Men of Letters, as the two halves of their lineage have combined to make them BETTER than either one alone; and also how Cas’s knowledge and experience as an angel combined with his experience as a human (and with humans) has made him better…)

As to the state of Heaven, gosh I like your theory. It sounds kinda awesome. I’m still not entirely sure Charlie won’t ever make a reappearance on Earth though, but if she doesn’t, I’ll feel free to adopt your headcanon :P

Also, I think I read a fic like that once…

 

 

[spn speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-speculation) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [men of letters vs hunters](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/men-of-letters-vs-hunters) [this was very pleasant to answer than you :D](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-was-very-pleasant-to-answer-than-you-%3AD) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	68. Chapter 68

[Mar 11, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158291074635/hey-mittens-im-fawning-over-the-1215-gifsets)

60 notes

**Anonymous asked: hey, Mittens! I'm fawning over the 12.15 gifsets and the woods convo with Dean & Crowley just struck me as an interesting kind of implication of how Dean might be processing Cas' barn confession. from him admitting "We've ALL changed." Crowley flatly saying "I don't care about [the girl of the week]," followed by Dean's 'oh shit he said that' expression, leaving a space for [who Crowley really cares about] [which EVERYBODY made clear in their barn!behavior]. "Maybe we rubbed off on you," then**

> cont. “Don’t flatter yourself,” then we rubbed off on each other. reciprocal rubbage. lmao innuendo aside a moment, if we can read Cas into this, (because they’re both Davy Perez), I feel a sort of vindication at the idea that yes! Cas was changed by them! they were changed by HIM, too. and a lot of how he’s changed is aaaaall him. Don’t flatter yourself, Dean, it’s not all your fault. and anyway softening these creatures can be a good thing. I’m glad Dean heard this. Scheherazade by proxy?
> 
> cont. also hahaha they do just MENTION Cas in the middle of that, (now that I’m looking at gifs in the right order), a thank you Dean had had in mind for like– weeks or however long this is after the barn– so clearly we can bring Cas into it! thought of him had been underlying the whole chat, virtue of thank you. and this is also after Crowley mimics the gruff!Dean performance, so Dean knocks it off. I weep, essentially. I’m so glad.

Hi!

I like this theory.

NARRATIVE SYMMETRY FTW.

Underscored by Crowley playing the STOP REPEATING ME game. I don’t know if that has a name, repeating everything someone says in a mocking fashion like that, but when my sister used to do it to me I’d end up yelling STOP REPEATING ME at her and she’d yell it back until mom came in and made us go to opposite ends of the house for a while. :D

Clearly, Crowley’s not engaging in that level of sibling drama. He’s doing it in a friendly, teasing way. More like the way Mr. Mittens and I might do this to each other, gently teasing each other a couple of times without it escalating to the point where anyone’s yelling (or being sent to their room).

(that wouldn’t really work since we share a room…)

:D

I mean, Dean making that entire conversation with Crowley all about thanking him for saving Cas in the first place… sort of makes THAT conversation all about THE OTHER conversation. They exist as a narrative matched set.

We were hoping that Crowley would pull this sort of nonsense on Cas when they were on their Buddy Cop Road Tour early in the season, so it’s nice to see him finally get a chance to annoy Dean, as well :D

So yeah, Scheherazade by proxy. :D

(*cries about why these things always happen because of Crowley* *then feels a lil bad for Crowley* *someone should really send him a fruit basket or something*)

 

 

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 12.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.15) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [worst ship on the show](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/worst-ship-on-the-show)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	69. Chapter 69

[Mar 13, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158368609440/oh-my-god-mittens-well-ok-this-is-definitely)

27 notes

**Anonymous asked: OH MY GOD MITTENS!!! Well ok this is definitely way too speculative and probably a better fic prompt than for meta, but if this last episode was such a season 8 ref with purgatory and even Cas being taken in by angels again, could we see a redo/resolution/twist on the crypt scene? I mean we've already seen it a bit with Cas's I Love You v Dean's I Need You...**

HECK. HOW MANY CRYPT SCENES AND REVERSE CRYPT SCENES AND DOUBLE REVERSE CRYPT SCENES AND INVERSE CRYPT SCENES AND… 

We’ve had a lot of “crypt scenes” already. I think it’s time we got something different, something better. Yes?

I think it’s a bit early to say that Cas has been “taken by angels” yet. We don’t know what’s actually going on up in Heaven yet, and we’ve got a ways to go before we eventually find out. I’d prefer not to bite my nails to nubbins over it just yet. :P

(note to say I started answering this DAYS ago, saved it as a draft and then forgot I stuck it there to mull over some more… sorry it took me so long to get back to it)

But back during the original crypt scene in 8.17, Cas only had that brief moment where he regained control before falling under control of the tablet. No free will, no satisfying resolution.

In 10.22, same deal, but reversed. Dean only regained a brief moment of control before succumbing entirely to the mark. No free will, no satisfying resolution.

In 11.03 Dean did break through momentarily to Attack Dog Enspelled Cas, but the spell had taken over too far. By the time the spell was lifted, they had bigger problems on their hands. (Rowena on the loose, the Darkness on the loose, and Cas still suffering the aftereffects of the spell nearly having destroyed him. And then later reveal that he was really suffering depression/ptsd/feelings of worthlessness etc.) Still no satisfying resolution.

In 11.14… SAM broke through Lucifer’s control of Cas long enough to discover the truth, but it was Dean’s life on the line, and Cas chose to let Lucifer continue to possess him because otherwise they would never see Dean again. Self-sacrifice, no satisfying resolution.

In 11.18, a spell gave Dean like five seconds to see Cas, but nowhere near long enough to plead his case to evict Lucifer. Lucifer took back control and the even worse things happened. No satisfying resolution.

Somehow BOTH major “crypt scene” scenarios from the end of s11 were written by bucklemming… incredible. Anyway, in 11.21 it wasn’t really a technical crypt scene– more of a crypt scene by proxy– but we did see Amara reach out to Dean by touching Castiel’s chest while Lucifer was “out of commission.” And then we see Dean finally throw off Amara’s control of HIM as Cas(ifer) was unbound from Amara’s imprisonment.

In 12.10 we had DEAN choose what was likely to be his own death rather than risk saving himself if it might potentially endanger Cas’s life. Banishing Ishim would’ve been guaranteed survival for Dean, unlikely survival for Cas. Instead, Dean chose unlikely survival for himself.

In 12.12 Cas had his entire family (Sam and Dean) make a definitive stand saying they would fight for HIM instead of saving themselves. 

Now with Cas going back to Heaven, but on VASTLY different terms than he went during s8, I think (hope) that the circumstances will continue to subvert the horrible things that he’s been put through before.

I think the more this evolves, and each time we see a similar scene of confrontation, it’s become more and more about CHOICE, and less and less of just trying to dramatically rescue the other…

Each time we’ve seen an instance of this sort of scene ^^ the circumstances have progressed. Maybe next time it’ll be less about breaking free, or defeating an enemy, and more about making a choice.

 

 

[anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous) [spn 12.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.15) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 11.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.21) [spn 11.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.18) [spn 11.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.14) [spn 11.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.03) [spn 10.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.22) [spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [the reverse crypt scene](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-reverse-crypt-scene) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [the crypt scene](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-crypt-scene)


	70. Chapter 70

[Mar 18, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158563170415/side-note-to-say-regarding-the-post-i-reblogged)

60 notes

(side note to say regarding t[he post I reblogged earlier today suggesting Dean– possibly with Sam in cahoots– might be running their own Xanatos gambit ](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158554109215/what-if-sam-and-dean-are-running-their-own-xanatos)this season a la Crowley’s “ten steps ahead” game on Lucifer, that this certainly does seem to play into that theory. As does 12.06, but I’ll discuss that in a separate post so this one doesn’t get completely derailed >.>)

That’s from [two posts down my dash](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158559850190/i-think-toni-was-the-mols-attack-dog-she-was), and I need to talk about this some more.

Yes, s12 is attempting to ensnare us in tangles of red string, but 15 episodes in we’re getting a better idea of which strings only lead back to the past and which are the Main Strings all those other smaller strings are connecting to, and I think a few big ones tie in to this “ten steps ahead” theory.

-Dean’s not only an excellent liar, aside from a few VERY NOTABLE SITUATIONS (i.e. desperately wanting to believe in Cas in 6.20, and desperately wanting to believe in Mary in 12.03), Dean is also EXCELLENT (possibly to a supernaturally ridiculous level) at detecting lies.

-Yes, Dean has a tendency to run straight at problems while lacking preparedness, but on this side of 11.23, I think he’s sincerely tempered that urge and is far more willing to play a “long game.”

Because we’ve seen numerous iterations of this theme so far this season. Notably in 12.01 we had Sam  “outwit” Toni with his faked suicide despite being compromised by a mind control drug. Then in 12.02 we had Dean outwitting Toni by knowing the mind control technique she was using on Mary. Yes, these were tiny victories, but I think they count as “teachable moments.”

I’m not sure yet if Sam is actively learning the same lessons as Dean here, because he has tried to keep things hidden, but I definitely believe that Dean has been learning lessons here. Especially since he was paired with Crowley in 12.15, who stated his machinations flat out. In an episode that textually compared Dean to Crowley, 

> **Dean:**  I mean, a few years ago, who’d have thought you’d be helping us save the girl of the week?  
>  **Crowley:**  Or a few years ago, who would have thought you’d be working with the King of Hell. Maybe you rubbed off on me. Maybe I rubbed off all over you.

AND outlined at least the beginnings of Crowley’s secret agenda:

> **Crowley:**  That’s not what I said. I’m glad you’ve had a little taste of freedom. What I said was, I’m always ten steps ahead. I said you cross me, and I crush you. You hit me, I hit you back twice as hard. You make me your dog, I make you my slave. That chain around your neck was nothing. A stylish accessory. This vessel, that’s your true prison. It’s been warded with runes and spell-work from the Cage carved into every molecule. In there, I own you. I’m just getting started. So, I’m gonna put you back in your hole and then I’m gonna go find your spawn, and I’m gonna rip him a part while you watch. And then… I’m still just getting started.

It’s nearly impossible to dismiss the notion that this level of plotting and planning should apply to Dean, at least as a theoretical possibility here.

But going back to 12.06 (which I just rewatched), there were some key moments that I think nicely summarize some of the big points of s12.

FIrst of all, the Villain Speech from Jael:

> **Jael** : Oh, I have heard so many stories about you Winchesters. And… I desperately want the Lucifer thing to be true. The idea that he left a meatsuit alive is just so deliciously weak. As for the rest of you, I have been inside your heads. I know all about you! For example, the twins – too frightened to tell anyone that they actually came to say goodbye to their daddy. Or the grieving mother who hated the fact that her son was a hunter so much, she’d hide his gear, she’d sabotage his jeep, anything to keep him from hunting. Not that it worked. Could’ve tried harder, huh? And this… Meatsuit that you all seem to care so much about, she actually fantasized about a life with Asa. Can you believe that? Like that worthless man-

I’m gonna break this one down:

  * Derisiveness over Lucifer leaving a meatsuit alive– yet now after 12.15 we know that Crowley’s specifically “rebuilt” one of Lucifer’s apparently dead meatsuits and turned it into a mobile imprisonment unit. Even dead meatsuits can be a weakness if you just plan well enough…
  * the “secret family” family secrets thing with the twins being Asa’s children, yet nobody else ever knew that. Family secrets can prove toxic later on down the line, but they can also prove to be cathartic and healing.
  * A mother hating the fact her son was a hunter so much that she attempted to sabotage him in order to “protect” him or stop him from hunting. Jael’s “could’ve tried harder” here is actually chilling considering Mary’s motivations in working with the MoL…
  * And finally, romantic love. Jody wanted a relationship with Asa, another hunter, someone who understands the life >.>



But the biggest revelation of them all was the betrayal by Bucky, that he was actually responsible for Asa’s death, and yet he’d tried to blame Jael for it. A lie, a betrayal, that earned him banishment from the hunting community.

Hunters gone rogue, as it were.

But another aspect of that episode absolutely fascinates me. Dean showed up to the fight fifteen minutes late with Starbucks, assessed the entire situation in like 15 seconds, and proceeded to formulate a plan. He was the only one truly PREPARED for the fight. Everyone else pulls out flashlights, and Dean pulls out a knife that can kill demons. I mean, he’s clearly got his priorities in order, more so than everyone else combined.

> Mary: All right, uh, but how are we gonna lure it inside?   
> Dean: We’re not. We get in. Everybody’s in, everybody’s clean. If someone won’t get in…   
> Mary: They’re the demon.   
> Dean: That’s right.   
> Mary: Smart.   
> Dean: Thanks. 

Dean thinks in ways that other people just… don’t, or can’t. He’s a strategist. This is not new.

We see a lot of these things resurface in 12.09 (because if I can avoid talking about 12.08, I will…)

> **Dean Winchester:**  Well, what we have here is a failure to communicate. ‘Cause we’re not trapped out here with you.  **You’re trapped out here with us.**

That’s not false bravado, there. We watch Sam and Dean lay out an unbelievable series of traps and take out an entire army unit without a single fatality. They are efficient and thorough without being cruel or excessively violent. They do just what they need to get the job done.

In 12.11, we see Sam put in the position of solving the mystery alone, and while he eventually did get to the bottom of the mystery, he struggled in small ways where Dean (in a similar circumstance way back in 2.14) essentially followed a straight line through Sam’s “lost memories.” It’s one of the reasons I doubt Sam is in on any sort of current Xanatos gambit plan as of yet. If there’s something that big in play, I think it’s still Dean’s plan alone.

I mean, that could clearly change over the next few episodes, and it’s possible they’re already jointly plotting something larger, but I can’t help but see Dean’s progression from starting off at a disadvantage at the beginning of the season, gradually getting his feet under him, and now beginning to overtake everyone else on the playing board.

 

 

[spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [dean is a genius and if you disagree you can fight me](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-is-a-genius-and-if-you-disagree-you-can-fight-me) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [lies and damn lies](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lies-and-damn-lies) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [heck i mentioned romantic love as one of the big themes so i gotta at least tag it :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heck-i-mentioned-romantic-love-as-one-of-the-big-themes-so-i-gotta-at-least-tag-it-%3AP) [spn 12.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.15) [spn 12.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.14) [spn 12.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.11) [spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [spn 12.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.06) [spn 12.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.01) [spn 12.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.02)


	71. Chapter 71

[Mar 19, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/158612999685/spn-usually-doesnt-just-leave-loose-narrative)

85 notes

**Anonymous asked: SPN usually doesn't just leave loose narrative ends. Like, the issue/question might be resolved subtextually, textually, etc, and it might take a while, but they do eventually come back to everything. Full circle. Dean and Sam have pondered life with someone "in the life." Dean has pondered "experiencing things differently." We have the love and love thing, we have he's in love with humanity, we have Cas textually saying i love you. I gotta wonder where it's all going. What full circle is.**

_(full circle anon) Sorry, forgot this: *sarcastically inserts we just don’t know bird gif*  
_

:D

I like to think of the show more as a spiral. Yeah, it seems to keep getting back around to the “full circle” moment and then just misses it by a hair enough to loop the spiral back around again.

Each go-around is bringing it ever closer to the center, and they make a little progress on each successive loop. It’s never exactly the same, and each time seems to have a (mostly) progressively better result… but the loop continues.

This is why I’m having such a time with s12. The loop has now wound so close to the middle that it’s like we’re seeing EVERYTHING from the previous loops all at once. Like we started the show circling the equator and we’ve been getting progressively closer and closer to the north pole where you can stand in all the time zones at once and theoretically tug bits of the story from any point around the entire loop.

(this is terrible because I’m now picturing Andrew Dabb in a Santa Claus costume running in circles around a candy cane pole shouting HO HO HO and throwing references to the entire series at us like Christmas presents and now I can’t even take myself seriously anymore)

But yes. Who can say where any of this will eventually end.

(oh no now Santa Dabb is pole dancing on the candy cane pole please someone come save me from my own terrible imagination)

 

 

[this is an andrew dabb appreciation blog (except when it comes to car stuff)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-an-andrew-dabb-appreciation-blog-%28except-when-it-comes-to-car-stuff%29) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	72. Chapter 72

[Apr 14, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159584962895/i-struggle-with-dean-still-doing-random-hookups)

177 notes

**Anonymous asked: I struggle with Dean still doing random hookups, like many other viewers. It's hard to not let it turn me bitter. But if it helps anyone, i try to look at how it's different now than in the past, and what it means for Dean's arc as a whole. First off, in recent seasons, Dean's hookups are few and far between. And when they happen, it's usually at a time of high emotional stress, often coinciding with worry/loneliness regarding Cas. In other words, in short, they're no longer "dude bro" moments.**

Hi there! And yeah, I can see surface-reading why people find it upsetting. And even if I couldn’t understand why people think it looks bad on the surface, most of my inbox today is just fretting over that scene in various degrees ranging from exasperated to distraught to resigned. So yeah, I get it.

Note to people sending me these sorts of anons, these are the things I don’t normally publish, because I’ve already written extensively on my own read on the scene, and it gets to the point where even I can’t really say anything new on the subject, as long-winded as I can be. :P

But as another anon suggested, perhaps we’re “reaching” in our destiel-positive interpretation of this particular scene… I’d like to suggest that since we’re being clobbered in the face both by Cas-adjacent subtext AND seeing a giant BS grace every flat surface in that diner, that we’re being rather forcefully prodded to make that reach.

Dean has, from the first season of this show, used sex as a coping mechanism, typically when he was feeling rejected or fearfully alone. And the parallels between this episode and 5.14 are practically punch-you-in-the-face levels of powerful.

In an episode were Famine told Dean that he was essentially a void and had no real desires for ANYTHING, yet Dean described himself as “well fed,” in that he satisfied each need as it arose and never let it become a desire. He essentially took what he needed when he needed it, in a weird sort of self-medication strategy that I identify with SO FREAKING HARD it’s actually kinda terrifying to me.

(and it’s been suggested that what Dean craved most was actually  _abstinence_ , in a sort of zen-calm way that he’s been living since about 12.14 again…but I think it has more to do with calm, with stability, with balance than actual abstinence)

(strangely in that episode the only thing Dean truly seemed to desire, and the one thing he put himself in jeopardy over, that he risked his personal safety for, he gave Cas about two whole seconds to retrieve Famine’s ring before charging in after him, running to his rescue. Which was about the amount of time Sam counted off before Dean charged into the diner in 12.10 where Cas was meeting Ishim…)

And yeah, Dean lampshaded it himself in 12.11, that his hookup with the waitress in that episode was his first in a really long time and he didn’t even remember it, so it was “like it never even happened.” And this is the first time since 12.11 he’s hooked up with anyone else, as far as we’ve seen. Before that when was his last hookup that we know of? 11.13? It’s been a while…

And what prompts this sudden and unexpected hookup? The huge void he’s currently feeling after Cas dropped THOSE WORDS on him in 12.12 and then  suddenly disappeared during 12.15 after obviously maintaining at least regular phone conversations with Dean up to that point. (I’m thinking really strongly of the parallel overlapping phone calls in 12.15 where Sam tells Mary “I love you” while Dean’s signing off with Cas… because they only have one more phone call after that before Cas stops answering, won’t return his messages, and can’t even be located with his phone’s GPS.

Last Dean knew Cas was hunting for Dagon and closing in… which is scary enough in itself but then post 12.17 when Dean didn’t hear back from Cas after he let him know they had a strong lead, and then STILL hasn’t heard from Cas after reporting in the details of their run in with Kelly and Dagon…

I mean Dean does NOT want to think about it but it’s GOT to be eating away at the back of his brain  _oh my god what if he’s dead what if he found Dagon and he’s dead now…_  And that is a place he absolutely cannot let his mind wander off to.

_but seriously what the hell else would keep Cas from answering for THIS LONG… oh my god could this be the cosmic consequence? did he get himself killed for me and i wasn’t even there to stop it? is it all my fault anyway?_

So Dean goes into this diner where EVERYWHERE HE LOOKS is a little ping of CAS CAS CAS from the big “Gus” that from 10 feet away might look like Cas to the mounted fish on the wall to the lost dog sign to all the people in tan coats that suddenly seem to be all the rage everywhere… It’s like he’s being subconsciously haunted by Cas. And the yawning void inside him needs to be filled immediately.

(so he creepily picks the one woman in the place that looks like a young version of his mother and chats her up with the worst line in history and a painfully pasted on grin and gets away from the diner and from Sam who’s telling him everything will be fine, and…)

How is anything in that scene NOT about Cas? And how is this, at all, “reaching.” It’s more like trying to keep from suffocating from how heavily the show was trying to pile it on there.

Which only adds to the sense of “claustrophobia” in the episode (that [@postmodernmulticoloredcloak](https://tmblr.co/mf4M6zzYHBBds6ET4AADySQ) was talking about [here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159582600465/first-thoughts-on-12x18). And I think it’s also relevant to how Dean is personally feeling right now. He feels isolated (from Cas, from Mary, and even to a degree from Sam because he feels Sam may be keeping secrets from him still…), he’s frustrated about not having been able to make contact with Cas yet, he does not like having to report to the MoL and be at their beck and call, he feels a creeping sense of violation in knowing that “his home” is not really his, or truly safe for him, after Mick popped in in the previous episode, nor does he like the MoL’s oppressive “Code” and is wary because of the way he and Sam routinely violate it… He’s worried about Mary. But mainly? The thing he was upset about through the entire opening segment? Was Cas. And the worry is smothering him.

When Dean feels emotional stress, he resorts to the appropriate outlet for countering it. Worry and loneliness >>> sex.

If he was angry about something, he’d be drinking or fighting. But he’s not angry, he’s worried. And this is his go-to coping strategy. Sublimation.

 

 

[spn 12.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.18) [spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn 12.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.15) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [spn 12.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.11) [spn 12.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.17)[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [revenge of the subtext](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/revenge-of-the-subtext) [spn 5.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.14) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	73. Chapter 73

[Apr 19, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159765870550/i-love-the-specific-romantically-coded-language)

60 notes

**Anonymous asked: I love the specific, romantically coded language and wording used in regards to Dean and Cas towards each other and also by other people. Sam literally talks to Dean about Cas like Cas is Dean's spouse, and vice-versa, and so many more examples from so many different characters. Ishim. Cain. Meg. Naomi. Like, no one has ever said to Sam about Cas "I know. You're hoping Castiel will return to you."**

Yep yep yep this ^^

No one has ever teased Sam that Cas was his boyfriend, or vice versa. No one has ever told Sam that Castiel was lost the moment he first touched Sam in Hell. Nobody’s ever suggested that Cas has a “more profound bond” with Sam.

in 11.18 it wasn’t Sam crying out for Cas over and over again.

I mean… 

(oh, and Sam has never said to Cas “I need you” over and over again. And Cas has never said to Sam “I’ll watch over you,” while he slept. I mean… the list goes on and on and on)

 

 

[what about sastiel? well... because this ^^](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/what-about-sastiel%3F-well...-because-this-%5E%5E) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	74. Chapter 74

[Apr 19, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159766905395/i-know-this-is-way-out-of-left-field-but-i-am)

103 notes

**Anonymous asked: I know this is way out of left field but I am watching s6 right now and what's up with Dean telling Sam 'this makes you lois lane' when they are talking about Cas being Superman going dark side???**

DEFLECTION!

The first time Dean asked Sam about why people always mistook them for a gay couple, in 2.11, Sam answered without even bothering to look up from what he was doing, not teasing Dean at all, just giving an honest answer without really putting any thought into it:

**Dean** : Of course, the most troubling question is why do these people assume we’re gay?  
 **Sam** : Well, you are kinda butch. Probably think you’re overcompensating.

Yet Dean’s always the one calling Sam “Samantha,” or insinuating it’s Sam with the “girly” hobbies and interests, or that Sam’s the one acting “gay.” Especially in circumstances where DEAN WANTS TO DO THE THING HE CONSIDERS “TOO GAY” BUT WON’T DO IT IN FRONT OF SAM.

Because hell, if that made ANYONE Lois Lane, it would be Dean, who spent the entirety of 6.20 defending Cas while Sam and Bobby tried to convince Dean he was acting shady. 

[Originally posted by sunshineclaire](https://tmblr.co/ZpxRKh28AKoTW)

Dean was Lois Lane.

(did I get that metaphor right? I don’t… actually know much about Superman.I think I saw one of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies when I was a kid, but that was more than 30 years ago… )

 

 

[spn 6.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.20) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [performing dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/performing-dean) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	75. Chapter 75

Apr 20, 2017

21 notes

5.16: *cue horrifying yet somehow disturbingly humorous montage of all of Sam and Dean’s deaths to this point* *shakes fist at 3.11 and 4.08*

Yep, this is another one of those episodes I have really already covered, and recently, in multiple posts on s12… *waves hello at Dabb again* *gee I wonder why this episode has had so much relevance in s12? we may never know >.>*

Heaven, the Samulet, Joshua, the incredibly squicky idea that John and Mary were “soul mates” based on the gross cupid touch making them into the “perfect couple” because they weren’t “perfect” until after Mary was dead, Dean and Sam’s VASTLY DIFFERENT notions of “happy memories” and the fact their heavens are sort of each other’s version of hell (i.e. Sam and Dean are not soul mates, they are absolutely repulsed by each other’s heavens), the fact that Heaven is a construct that we apply our own personalities and experiences to in order to perceive it:

*again under a cut, because wtf is wrong with me, I keep saying “I have already talked this into the ground” about every episode, but apparently I’m trying to talk it straight through to the other side of the planet. I suspect I’ll be bobbing up in the Indian Ocean any minute now*

This is why, once Dean “broke out of his heaven” and set out on the Axis Mundi to find Sam’s heaven, it didn’t look like a pristine white corridor the way Heaven seems to look to the angels (or just in s10 and later, or whatever).

**Castiel** : Some people see a tunnel or a river. What do you see?  
 **Dean** : Nothing. My dash. I’m in my car. I’m on a road.  
 **Castiel** : Alright. A road. For you it’s a road. Follow it, Dean. You’ll find Sam. Follow the road.

Because we were seeing Heaven from Dean’s perspective here, we also saw the road. But he had Cas to give him the secret hack on how to get out of his heaven to find Sam’s heaven.

Ash later underscores this, and strangely 10.17 proves him out. We saw “Bobby Singer” land (like Ash described “Winchester Land” as a section of heaven. We saw ALL the Bobby Singers grouped together in one long corridor. Not ONE BIG HEAVEN COMPARTMENT. All those Bobby’s were NOT soul mates.

Okay? Okay.

I think I’ve seriously talked plenty about this episode. Have my tag for it if you’re interested in the metaphysical nitty-gritty of it, 

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn%205.16>

or my tag for Heaven stuff (and all the other realms) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven%20hell%20purgatory%20and%20the%20empty)

* * *

Dean actually didn’t wake up when someone sneaked right up to his bed and stole his gun out from under his pillow? Incredible. But hey, at least he woke up quick and figured out what was going on before Roy and Walt shot him and Sam…

Seriously one of my favorite Dean lines in the entire series, because Roy and Walt think it’s bravado, but Dean 100% ain’t kidding here:

**Roy** : Killin’ Sam was right but Dean…  
 **Walt** : He made us and we just snuffed his brother, you idiot. You want to spend the rest of your life knowing Dean Winchester’s on your ass, ‘cause I don’t. Shoot ‘im.  
 **Dean** : Go ahead, Roy, do it. But I’m going to warn you, when I come back I’m going to be pissed. C’mon! Let’s get this show on the road.

Just like Charlie thought she was “dreaming” in 9.04 when she was dead in and heaven, Dean thinks he’s dreaming here now…

Until something “breaks through” his dream in a traumatic way, trying to get his attention and alerting him to the fact that no, he is definitely not dreaming. Cas “disrupts” Dean’s memory with a reminder of his own death and then tries to communicate with him on the radio.

**Dean** : I’m dead.  
 **Cas** : Condolences.

and then when he realizes:

**DEAN** : Heaven? How did I get to heaven?  
 **CASTIEL** : (on radio) Please, listen. This spell, this connection, it’s difficult to maintain.  
 **DEAN** : Wait. If I’m in heaven, then where’s Sam?

NOT because he assumed Sam would be in his personal heaven with him, because HE WAS TERRIFIED THAT SAM DIDN’T GO TO HEAVEN AT ALL. I mean, just two episodes ago he was detoxing Sam off the demon blood again and watching Sam control demons enough to kill the Horseman Famine. I mean… >.>

(Dean was terrified that Sam was actually in Hell here, not wibbly over Sam not being WITH HIM)

Meanwhile Sam is experiencing Awkward Thanksgiving with Complete Strangers, and has no idea he’s dead or in heaven, because Cas wasn’t able to connect to Sam the way he did to Dean to pass that info along… hmmmm

Dean was then able to “Call” Cas through the tv, but as the transcript describes the connection:

“Dean and Sam move over to the TV. They can see Castiel but the picture rolls and is filled with static. His voice fades in and out and is sometimes distorted.”

He heard Dean “praying” to him, but his connection isn’t as solid as it was in Dean’s actual Heaven.

* * *

I’m not actually making any real s12 meta points here, just riffing on all the destiel-y bits because it’s late and the rewatch is actually cutting into my nightly writing time now… I should probably try to stay on point and just get to the point here…

Cas thinks he’s got a couple of “Inside Men” who can get information for him that can only be obtained in heaven… which heck sounds an awful lot like 10.17, called Inside Man… I wonder why… Oh, right, it was also written by Andrew Dabb. What a coincidence.

**CASTIEL** : (on TV) It’s called the Axis Mundi. It’s a path that runs through heaven. Different people see it as different things. For you, it’s two-lane asphalt. The road will lead you to the Garden. You’ll find Joshua there. And Joshua… can take us to God. (The pictures starts to break up badly.) The Garden. Quick. Hurry.

The Road, that Dean drove on to reach Sam’s heaven. It’s ENTIRELY METAPHORICAL, because Heaven is a construct. And Zachariah is officially messing with Sam and Dean.

**SAM** : Dean. What are you doing?  
 **DEAN** : Looking for a road.  
 **SAM** : You… (Dean opens the closet under the stairs) You think the road is in a closet?  
 **DEAN** : (turns on the light) We’re in heaven, Sam, okay? I mean, our memories are coming true. Cas is on TV. Finding a road in a closet would be pretty much the most (he sees something on the floor) normal thing to happen to us today.

(Dean finds the road in the closet)

And we’ve talked this scene to death recently as well, now that Mary’s back.

Sam is FREAKING MISERABLE watching Dean and Mary interact as if he didn’t even exist, Mary cutting the crusts off his sandwich and giving him pie, but even one of Dean’s “greatest hits” memories includes the fact that Mary and John were fighting,  _because he got to care for Mary and tell her she was loved, that he loved her_.

And that’s it, the only time in canon Dean has ever said “I love you” to anyone.

**SAM** : I just never realized how long you’ve been cleaning up Dad’s messes.

And speaking of messes that Dean had to clean up, Sam finds the next “road,” on a post card.

Sam is GIDDY to find his dog from when he ran away, and DEAN IS FREAKING MISERABLE.

*HEAVILY IMPLIED THAT DEAN IS STILL HIDING JUST HOW AWFUL THINGS WERE FOR HIM WHEN “DAD CAME HOME” AND FOUND SAM GONE HERE*

Dean walks out the door of the trailer, while they are STILL IN SAM’S HEAVEN, because they haven’t yet found another “road,” and walks straight into what Dean considers one of the worst nights of his life, and Sam considers one of the best…

**SAM** : Dean, I’m sorry. I just, uh…  
 **DEAN** : I know. You didn’t, you didn’t think of it like that.  
 **SAM** : Dean!  
 **DEAN** : C’mon! Your heaven is somebody else’s Thanksgiving. Okay. It’s bailing on your family. What do you want me to say?  
 **SAM** : Man, I never got the crusts cut off my PB & J. I just don’t look at family the way you do.

And then we see how Ash hacked heaven. 

**ASH** : See, you gotta stop thinking of heaven as one place. It’s more like a butt-load of places all crammed together. Like Disneyland except without all the anti-Semitism.

…

**ASH** : Pretty much. A few people share—special cases. What not.  
 **DEAN** : What do you mean ‘special’?  
 **ASH** : Aw, you know. Like, uh, soul-mates. (Silence greets his statement. Dean and Sam don’t look at each other.) Anyway. Most people can’t leave their own private Idaho’s.  
 **DEAN** : But you ain’t most people.

Yet Ash found Sam and Dean together… and he made some assumptions. He didn’t know that Cas had been giving Dean the “ain’t most people” cheat codes to Heaven.

But Zachariah’s already got Sam and Dean trapped:

**MARY** : Honey. Why are you up?  
 **DEAN** : Look. I’m-I’m sorry. I love you but you’re not real and we don’t have time—  
 **MARY** : Did you have another nightmare? Tell me.  
 **DEAN** : I gotta go.  
 **MARY** : Then how 'bout I tell you my nightmare, Dean? The night I burned.  
…  
 **MARY** : Don’t you walk away from me. (Dean stops) I never loved you. You were my burden. I was shackled to you. Look what it got me. (She blinks and her eyes turn yellow.)

And about this point Dean and Sam both realize that Heaven can be just as good at torture as Hell can…

**MARY** : And then, finally, I was dead. The one silver lining was that at least I was away from you. (She takes a big breath.) Everybody leaves you, Dean. You noticed? Mommy. Daddy. Even Sam.

But that is NOT THE REAL MARY. That’s not even her ghost or spirit or soul or whatever. Zachariah calls it a “Blessed Memory” of her, and honestly that’s pretty much what Dean has always thought of his memories of Mary. 

They finally meet Joshua and arrive at the garden, where we learn that God talks to Joshua, but it’s really only a one sided conversation. It wasn’t until 11.20 when Metatron was allowed to talk BACK to God (and I mean that in the sense that he back-talked at God) and push him to accept his responsibility for EVERYTHING, and it STILL took three more episodes after that before he finally acted on it at the 11th hour and because of Dean’s direct influence on both him and Amara:

**JOSHUA** : He knows what the angels are doing. He knows that the Apocalypse has begun. He just doesn’t think it’s his problem.  
 **DEAN** : (stunned) Not his problem?  
 **JOSHUA** : God saved you already. He put you on that plane. He brought back Castiel. He granted you salvation in heaven (he turns to face Sam directly) and after everything you’ve done too. It’s more than he’s intervened in a long time. He’s finished. Magic amulet or not, you won’t be able to find him.

And back to the “magic amulet.”

Proof to Dean about his own “deadbeat dad” from way back in 3.09, and now proof to Cas about his “deadbeat dad” in 5.16. And that was just one deadbeat dad too many for Dean. When he first gave Cas the amulet in 5.02, he warned Cas not to lose it, and then asked for it back later… but now, 

Dean’s first act on reviving from being dead is to call Cas. And he has to watch Cas’s moment where his faith in God breaks completely, and he returns the amulet and disappears…

Sam is still talking about finding another way to end all of this, but Dean’s losing his faith in himself, and throws the amulet in the trash…

Now in s12, Dean does have faith in himself again. He doesn’t doubt his instincts anymore. He’s not dealing with things so far above his pay grade that he can’t even get straight answers and is getting dragging around by the nose by middle management angels.

God has made Dean pancakes and told him he and Sam can take care of Humanity now… (with Cas’s help of course, because God keeps bringing Cas back for them).

The one thing Dean has to reclaim for himself is Mary. She’s absolutely not this warped Torture Hallucination Version that Zachariah presented him with, but she’s also not just that “Blessed Memory” version that Dean had presented himself… Nor are Sam and Dean the little boys that she thinks she remembers from her own version of Heaven. They’re just as fake as Dean’s childhood memory of Mary was in his heaven.

And to continue this already ridiculously long rant with more from the continuing series of Chats With Lizbob:

mittensmorgul maybe dean will tell mary what heaven’s really like, since she’s got this weird idea her whole family was there with her… he needs to set her straight, tell her that NONE of them actually share a heaven  
because he and sam have been there  
that it’s just your memories  
and not real

elizabethrobertajones yeah, I can almost hear that - “It’s not real Mary, WE are£

mittensmorgul: that PEOPLE are real, that the Dean and Sam on earth here with her are real. Heaven was just memories

(I love that there’s an accidental typo of a pound symbol there, like a random reminder I’m talking to a British Person, in case I was forgetting to read Lizbob’s parts in an English accent…)

mittensmorgul well, she’s already brought up heaven twice, once saying she didn’t remember it, the next saying she was there with John and her little boys, and now I think she needs to hear the truth 

elizabethrobertajones DOROTHY Dream? Charlie, you died. Don’t worry about it, though. You’re not a real hunter until you’ve died and come back again. CHARLIE Slow down. Why would you think I died? DOROTHY Heaven – it’s your dream life. 

Because as much as Mary knows, I’m not sure she really understands all of this yet. And I think she really needs to in order to be able to finally let go of the past, for better or worse.

Okay, now I have officially used up more than an hour of my writing time on this episode I’m gonna go see if I can’t write some fic instead. :P

 

 

[spn 5.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.16) [spn 12.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.15) [spn 12.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.18) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn 12.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.01) [spn 12.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.02) [heaven hell purgatory and the empty](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heaven-hell-purgatory-and-the-empty) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [spn 11.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.20) [if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you-say-%27mysterious-ways%27-so-help-me-i-will-kick-your-ass) [face your past head-on and FIND ANOTHER WAY a BETTER WAY](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/face-your-past-head-on-and-FIND-ANOTHER-WAY-a-BETTER-WAY)[spn 9.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.04)


	76. Chapter 76

# 5.17 and 5.18, or How does any of this make any sense whatsoever if you don’t “see the destiel?”

Apr 20, 2017

33 notes

Short answer: It really doesn’t make sense whatsoever if you try and remove any of the destiel subtext. Like, zero sense.

Because there’s four (or five, if you count Adam, but he’s literally a plot device again and not an actual character… he is the red herring) things that Save Dean Winchester in these episodes:

  1. the father-son love of Bobby
  2. the sibling love of Sam
  3. Lisa and Ben as the symbolic representation of Dean’s devotion to protecting all of humanity
  4. (Adam the red herring that proves these other three ^^ because he DOESN’T fit any pattern and was never a real part of their family and actually flat-out rejects his ties to the Winchester family in favor of choosing his mother over them, even at the cost of selling out the rest of humanity to do so… he is literally the Anti-Winchester who Dean is willing to risk his own life to save ANYWAY)
  5. And Cas. The absolute devotion of an angel who gave Dean everything, up to and including his life. Several times over. And whose heartbreak over Dean’s resignation to give in is one of the key things that gives Dean a reason to keep fighting, and the strength to deny Heaven’s plans for him at the last moment… and Dean hasn’t really wavered in that faith again since…



Okay, that said, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s get this party started, with:

5.17: a bunch of demons herd Sam and Dean to Crazytown

Also, 5.18, because it follows directly on from 5.17 thematically, and I couldn’t figure out a way to separate out the overlaps so I just sorta… kept writing :P

Because of that, under a cut because this is longer than most of my single episode posts:

**ROB** : I hate to tell you this, but those were demons and this is the Apocalypse. So…buckle up. 

I mean, tell us something we don’t know…

**PASTOR GIDEON** : Who would have thought the Apocalypse could be so romantic? Marriage, family—it’s a blessing. Especially in times like this. So hold on to that. 

everyone it town is getting hitched because there’s no time like the present to make things official than at the end of the world (where premarital sex has been declared a sin by a “prophet” who’s actually the Whore of Babylon)

Cas’s voicemail skills have come so far…

**CASTIEL’S VOICEMAIL** : You have reached the voicemail box of:  
 **CASTIEL** : I don’t understand why, why do you want me to say my name  
CASTIEL presses random buttons.

After what Pamela said to Dean in 5.16, about maybe Heaven wasn’t such a bad place to go after all, and that maybe Dean didn’t have to keep fighting his destiny quite so hard because no matter how bad things got on Earth, even if millions of people died, they’d be coming to “a better place.”

**DEAN** : We’re all gonna die, Sam. In like a month—maybe two. I mean it. This is the end of the world, but these people aren’t freaking out. In fact they’re running to the exit in an orderly fashion. I don’t know that that’s such a bad thing.  
 **SAM** : Who says they’re all gonna die? What ever happened to us saving them?

It’s gotten to Dean in a big way. He’s struggling with doubts about himself and his ability to fight off this huge destiny by himself, now knowing that even God doesn’t care and won’t help them, and by the end of this episode seeing even Cas give up and give in to the Bukowski fatalism… It’s almost like he’s getting to the point where he just wants it to end, where he’s being worn down by circumstances until he doesn’t even have the will to keep fighting anymore.

**LEAH** : Well, Dean…you’re chosen.  
 **DEAN** Yeah, more like cursed.  
 **LEAH** Must be hard. Being the Vessel of Heaven and having no hope.

(boy drinks red label Schultz beer and immediately is killed by a demon)

But all of this is being orchestrated by the Whore, to manipulate the people of the town into doing her bidding. She plays exactly into their desperation until they’re willing to do ANYTHING in her name, including murdering innocent children.

**SAM** : No drinking, no gambling, no premarital sex. Dean, they basically just outlawed ninety percent of your personality.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah, well, whatever. When in Rome.  
 **SAM** : So, uh…you’re cool with it?  
 **DEAN** : I’m not cool. I’m not, not cool. I’m just, look man, I’m not a prophet. We’re not locals. It’s not my call.

Sam has a nice chat with the bartender who’s just been put out of business:

**PAUL** : Look, there’s sure as hell demons. And maybe there is a God. I don’t know. Fine. But I’m not a hypocrite. I never prayed before and I ain’t starting now. If I go to hell, I’m going honest. How ‘bout you?  
 **SAM** : What about me?  
 **PAUL** : Not a true believer, I take it.  
 **SAM** : I believe, yeah. I do. I’m just. Pretty sure God stopped caring a long time ago. 

Yeah, Sam’s got it on pretty good authority. But Sam refuses to quit fighting for it, even though Dean’s rapidly giving up here… Sam tells him the town’s shut off all communications with the outside world, isolating themselves in self-defense…

And all Dean can say is that he doesn’t care, that he and Sam were supposed to have been the ones to roll into town and save these people, but they just couldn’t do it. That maybe he’s lost the will to keep fighting.

**SAM** : No you can’t. You can’t do this to me. I got one thing, one thing, keeping me going. You think you’re the only one white-knuckling it here, Dean? I can’t count on anyone else. I can’t do this alone.

*Dean walks out in defiance of the town’s “curfew” and heads to the bar, where even Sam believes he’s going to get drunk, because that was what SAM had been doing, and said he would’ve stayed and KEPT drinking if it hadn’t been for the curfew in town. But like in 12.14 when Dean went out ostensibly to get a drink and returned to the bunker ENTIRELY SOBER, Dean has such a long history of this. Of telling Sam (or whoever’s nearby) that he’s going to drink… and then never drinks. Major Performing Dean here.*

While Dean’s out, Cas shows up. Poor drunk Cas…

**CASTIEL** : I got your message. It was long, your message. And I find the sound of your voice grating.

(pffft “long,” it’s 25 words and like half of them are filler words like “um” and “so.” really long. >.>)

But the Whore’s goal is corruption:

**DEAN** : So the demons smoking out—that’s just a con? Why? What’s the endgame?  
 **CASTIEL** : What you just saw—innocent blood spilled in God’s name.

(sort of like the Righteous Man had to be corrupted to spill blood in Hell to break the first seal…)

**CASTIEL** : The whore can only be killed by a true Servant of Heaven.  
 **DEAN** : Servant, like…  
 **CASTIEL** : Not you. Or me. Sam, of course, is an abomination. We’ll have to find someone else. 

But in the end, it was Dean who was able to kill her, because he was already losing his will to resist what was beginning to look like an inevitability. He’s been on a slow slide into resignation all season, going right back to 5.02 immediately after he learned about his “destiny” to be Michael’s vessel, where he gave Bobby his first “keep fighting until we go down swinging” sort of speech, and then turned around and told SAM it was a bunch of BS and that they probably didn’t have a chance to stop it all from happening anyway.

Michael insisting on that fact to his face in 5.13, learning how heaven had been arranging their lives since LONG before they were born in 5.14, rightly or wrongly believing Death himself was trying to take out Bobby and therefore one of Dean’s last remaining emotional supports in order to nudge Sam and Dean into saying yes, and then finally Cas being told by God himself that he just didn’t care one way or the other. I mean, when God himself tells you to give up, it’s kinda disheartening…

Dean gets to have his emotional bonding moment with Cas over their respective deadbeat dads, which is one of the things that will eventually save Dean… again.

And the townspeople, even after seeing the proof that their “prophet” had been the Whore, they’re lost, wondering how they’re supposed to get to the “paradise” she’d promised them now that she’s dead. They still don’t get that they’d damned themselves by trusting her in the first place…

**SAM** : Are you gonna do something stupid?  
 **DEAN** Like what?  
 **SAM** Like Michael stupid.  
 **DEAN** Come on, Sam. Give me a break.

*Dean immediately leaves to go do something “Michael stupid”*

*after making a pit stop at Lisa’s*

**DEAN** : Look, I have no illusions, okay? I know the life that I live, I know how that’s gonna end for me. Whatever. I’m okay with that. But I wanted you to know…that when I do picture myself happy…it’s with you. And the kid. 

Riiiiight… maybe “happy” isn’t the right word here? Maybe “peaceful,” but happy? A woman he’s spent a grand total of five days of his life with? She’s the anchor of normality in his otherwise horrifying and completely out-of-his-control life. But along with Sam (who Dean would do anything for to protect him from the crap), and Cas (who defied heaven over and over again for Dean and despite his own feelings of loss and abandonment by God will drag Dean bodily back into the fight yet again), and Bobby (who has only kept on fighting himself because of Dean’s will pushing him along), Lisa’s role here is not insignificant in turning the Apocalypse bus around. She’s one of the linchpins holding Dean together in a critical way.

She represents everything worth fighting for in humanity, the “civilians” all tucked up safe behind their white picket fences who just want to live their lives and never have to face down the devil…

**DEAN** : Whatever happens, you’re gonna be okay.  
 **LISA** : What do you mean? What are you talking about?  
 **DEAN** : The people that I’m gonna see next, they’re not gonna get anything from me without agreeing to a few conditions.

Lisa’s safety is one of those conditions, and it’s one of the details that gives Dean just enough time to kill Zachariah before Michael can come down and take possession of him.

But that’s the foundation of 5.18. Which is just about Dean’s lowest moment on the show to this point. He obviously reaches a few lower moments later (you don’t take on the Mark of Cain when you’re in a Happy Place…), but as far as his belief and trust in himself, this is possibly his most significant Moment Of Doubt ever.

**SAM** : No? So Michael’s not about to make you his Muppet? What the hell, man? This is how it ends? You just…walk out?  
 **DEAN** : Yeah, I guess.  
 **SAM** : How could you do that?  
 **DEAN** : How could I? All you’ve ever done is run away.  
 **SAM** : And I was wrong. Every single time I did.

Yet Dean still rejects the three people he’s closest to in the world. Sam, right there ^^, but he “brought help” in the form of Cas, who boops Dean back to Bobby’s and stops him from haring off after Michael. Next up is Bobby:

**DEAN** : Yeah, well, that’s easy for you to say. But if Lucifer burns this mother down, and I coulda done something about it, guess what? That’s on me.  
 **BOBBY** : You can’t give up, son.  
 **DEAN** : You’re not my father. And you ain’t in my shoes.

I can’t help but think back to 5.04 here, and Dean’s vision of the future– what he was warned would be left of the world if he refused to say yes… and he’s starting to get more than a little scared that it’s coming true…

Lisa tried and failed convince Dean not to do whatever he’d had planned.

Bobby shakes him up a little more, pulling out the gun and bullet he intends to kill himself with and shouting Dean down:

**BOBBY** : Every morning, I look at it. I think, “Maybe today’s the day I flip the lights out.” But I don’t do it. I never do it. You know why? Because I promised you I wouldn’t give up!

Enter Adam, who Cas intercepts from the angels, talking about the deal he made with Zachariah to be Michael’s vessel and kill the devil… in exchange for getting to see his mom again…

**CASTIEL** : Maybe they’re desperate. Maybe they wrongly assumed Dean would be brave enough to withstand them.  
 **DEAN** : Alright, you know what? Blow me, Cas.

Meanwhile Adam has no reason to trust them at all, and it comes down to Sam to stand up for “Another Way.”

**SAM** : Now, Adam…the angels are lying to you. They’re full of crap.  
 **ADAM** : Yeah, I don’t think so.  
 **SAM** : Really. Why not?  
 **ADAM** : Um, ‘cause they’re angels.

and…

**BOBBY** : You’re still John’s boy.  
 **ADAM** : No, John Winchester was some guy who took me to a baseball game once a year. I don’t have a dad. So we may be blood, but we are not family. My mom is my family. And if I do my job, I get to see her again. So no offense, but she’s the one I give a rat’s ass about, not you.

So much for all those happy family feelings that Ghoul Adam had talked about… that was never Adam at all, it was the GHOUL talking about his family feelings… for his ghoul family…

Adam asks about this big plan they’re working on to save the world:

heh.

First “blow me, Cas” and now, “Well, Cas, not for nothing, but the last person who looked at me like that…I got laid.”

This episode is a wild ride.

**DEAN** : I’m serious. I mean, think about how many people we’ve gotten killed, Sam. Mom, Dad, Jess, Jo, Ellen. Should I keep going?  
 **SAM** : It’s not like we pulled the trigger.  
 **DEAN** : We might as well have. I’m tired, man. I’m tired of fighting who I’m supposed to be.

But really, Dean… it’s not self-doubt… It’s the ghost of John Winchester and a lifetime of being told to watch out for Sammy, keep an eye on Sammy, if you can’t save Sammy you have to kill him…

**DEAN** : I just…I—I don’t believe.  
 **SAM** : In what?  
 **DEAN** : In you. I mean, I don’t. I don’t know whether it’s gonna be demon blood or some other demon chick or what, but…I do know they’re gonna find a way to turn you.  
 **SAM** : So you’re saying I’m not strong enough.  
 **DEAN** : You’re angry, you’re self-righteous. Lucifer’s gonna wear you to the prom, man. It’s just a matter of time.  
 **SAM** : Don’t say that to me. Not you…of all people.  
 **DEAN** : I don’t want to. But it’s the truth. And when Satan takes you over, there’s got to be somebody there to fight him, and it ain’t gonna be that kid. So, it’s got to be me.

So Dean lures the ONE person he knows would do anything for him to the panic room where they’ve locked him up, and “blows him to Oz” so he can escape and give in to Michael…

So Cas shows up to the dude praying to Michael on Dean’s behalf, and boops him to the ground under a Heaven-coded Schultz sign as the camera pans left to reveal a great big El Sol sign (Deception! HAHA!) and in this episode specifically as the Deception of Heaven, that Heaven itself has deceived both Adam and Dean…

And honestly this is as close as Zachariah ever got to tricking Dean into saying yes… but Castiel hasn’t stopped believing in Dean:

**CASTIEL** : I rebelled for this?! So that you could surrender to them?  
 **DEAN** : Cas! Please!  
 **CASTIEL** : I gave everything for you. And this is what you give to me.

[Originally posted by freeasafishinthesea](https://tmblr.co/ZyW20vnakecd)

And here we have the key to everything Zachariah ever was:

**ADAM** : No…but what about the stuff that you said? I’m supposed to fight the devil.  
 **ZACHARIAH** : Mmm, not so much. Hey, if it’s any consolation, you happen to be the illegitimate half-brother of the guy we do care about. That’s not bad, is it?  
 **ADAM** : So you lied…about everything.  
 **ZACHARIAH** : We didn’t lie. We just avoided certain truths to manipulate you.

And why Cas is so unconvinced by Ketch in 12.08. He knows how this tactic works ^^. But despite Dean’s utter lack of trust in Sam’s ability to keep saying no to the devil, Sam shows ABSOLUTE AND UNSHAKEABLE TRUST in Dean, even knowing how hopeless Dean’s feeling right now. And this? This is what saves the world.

**SAM** : And the place is crawling with mooks…Pretty much a no-shot-in-hell, hail-Mary kind of thing.  
 **DEAN** : Ah, so the usual. What are you going to do?  
 **SAM** : For starters…I’m bringing you with.

This is Sam’s moment of “redemption” for s4. For Ruby. For the demon blood. For trusting the demon over his own brother. He’s showing a sign of faith here, and atoning for every time he left and knows it was “the wrong thing to do.”

Heaven and Hell wanted to divide Sam and Dean, because this whole apocalypse thing falls apart if they don’t give in to their respective “sides.”

Combined with the challenge Cas issues Dean– to do the Right Thing and choose to save the planet rather than letting it burn–  _which is exactly how Dean got through to Cas in 4.22_ – with the whole “if there was ever anything worth dying for, this is it” line. In 4.22 Dean had made it about saving the Earth, but Cas, right here, makes it  _about saving one man_ , about stopping Dean from saying yes.

**DEAN** : Whoa, wait. You’re gonna take on five angels?  
 **CASTIEL** : Yes.  
 **DEAN** : Isn’t that suicide?  
 **CASTIEL** : Maybe it is. But then I won’t have to watch you fail. I’m sorry, Dean. I don’t have the same faith in you that Sam does.

“Failure” here isn’t the end of the world, isn’t the fulfillment of the apocalypse. FAILURE TO CAS IN THIS MOMENT IS DEAN BREAKING AND SAYING YES. PERIOD. FULL STOP. END OF STORY.

That Dean “Humanity” Winchester would surrender his free will.

That would be failure.

Because This is what Cas has given up everything he’s ever known, everything he ever was, in service to. He defied GOD for Dean. And he’s willing to sacrifice everything he has left to give Dean a chance to prove he’d done the right thing, that he’d made the right choice…

(I’ll hold them off, I’ll hold them all off…)

(Cas has made a habit out of this… 4.22, 5.18, 5.22, 6.20, 7.01, 7.23, s10, 12.12… and don’t even get me STARTED on all the crypt scene stuff… need I refer y’all to [lizbob’s incredible diagram?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159352664830/elizabethrobertajones-so-basically-you-cant))

**DEAN** : Do you hear me? Call Michael down, you bastard!  
 **ZACHARIAH** : How do I know you’re not lying?  
 **DEAN** : Do I look like I’m lying?

(I love Dean’s belief that everyone can sense lies the same way he can)

ZACHARIAH: Michael’s not gonna kill me.  
DEAN: Maybe not. But I am.

(I know, I know… I just love everything about that… that’s the moment Dean reclaims his Free Will once and for all, and damn it makes me so damn happy okay)

So Dean managed to escape with Sam, but Adam wasn’t so lucky. Who knows, Michael probably offered him that peace he’d been seeking, that trip to heaven to see his mom, and he said yes. Because if Adam hadn’t consented in that moment, Michael wouldn’t have been able to take him, you know? That was it. That was Adam’s last moment on Earth.

**DEAN:** Just…let me say this. I don’t know if it’s being a big brother or what, but to me, you’ve always been this snot-nosed kid that I’ve had to keep on the straight and narrow. I think we both know that that’s not you anymore. I mean, hell, if you’re grown-up enough to find faith in me…the least I can do is return the favor. So screw destiny, right in the face. I say we take the fight to them, and do it our way.

And that’s what they do…

 

 

[spn 5.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.17) [s12 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-meta-rewatch) [spn 5.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.18) [spn 12.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.14) [performing dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/performing-dean) [seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/seriously-though-why-doesn%27t-everyone-just-trust-dean%27s-gut-instincts-it%27s-like-he%27s-got-an-uncanny-magical-gift-here...) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [el sol](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/el-sol) [schultz the beer of death and debt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/schultz-the-beer-of-death-and-debt) [all my tags for zachariah somehow involve the fact that dean stabbed him in the face pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/all-my-tags-for-zachariah-somehow-involve-the-fact-that-dean-stabbed-him-in-the-face-pffft) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester)


	77. Chapter 77

[Apr 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159812714345/but-they-havent-sat-same-bed-in-808-they-just)

22 notes

**Anonymous asked: But they haven't sat SAME bed in 8.08. They just couldn't. Because malexmale. They are not even allowed to sit on same bench. Anyway, Cas isn't even looking Kelly's eyes lol**

Pffft yeah… I mean this:

they’re not on the same bed either. Sorta looks like Cas was sitting on the bed opposite her and Kelly did a wide-eyed wondrous “He’s moving! Give me your hand, feel him kick! Yes, he’s half Satan, but he’s also half human, and you should feel that.”

This isn’t about Kelly as much as it’s about the baby. Like she’s imploring him to understand how she feels about it. And Cas being the kind of dude who’d been running around healing random babies back in s8…

But yeah, Dean and Cas are sitting knee to knee her just like Cas and Kelly, but we don’t even get both their faces in a single shot. We get this back and forth with the camera:

The blurry thing on the right there is Cas’s shoulder.

They’re talking ABOUT CAS, because Dean is worried about him, and Cas is telling him some rather worrying things about how he’s been feeling…

I don’t really think this particular conversation didn’t happen on a single bed because malexmale, as you suggested. This was a VERY SERIOUS conversation in which Cas mentioned having experienced suicidal thoughts over his guilt about heaven…

And I believe the conversation he’s having with Kelly is going to be of a similar level of heaviness… because while yes, she’s trying to gain his sympathy and protection for her and her child, her entire plot arc here has been dealing with very heavy subjects (rape by deception, her loss of agency, abortion, giving birth to the spawn of the devil, where her life is hanging in the balance too…)

Kelly’s story isn’t all about happy families and baby showers, you know?

The implication that Cas is suddenly going to sprout wild, passionate romantic feelings for Kelly solely because they sat opposite each other on motel beds is ludicrous.

Now Cas and Dean, at that point in 8.08, had  _more than four years_  of shared experience and friendship. They were approaching each others as equals from a position of trust. They were discussing feelings in a way that Dean normally  _does not do_. One episode after Cas mysteriously returned from Purgatory with no memory of how he got back. After seven episodes of us watching Dean run through purgatory with the sole mission of finding his angel and bringing him home. I mean, really.

To say that whatever conversation he’s having there with Kelly is somehow powerful enough to cancel out everything that had built up between Dean and Cas by 8.08… not to mention the four and a half years since that conversation… I mean… >.>

 

 

[spn 8.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.08) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	78. Chapter 78

[Apr 25, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159997593405/you-ever-think-its-weird-how-dean-doesnt-really)

63 notes

**Anonymous asked: You ever think it's weird how Dean doesn't really talk/brag about sex and his sexual escapades in front of Cas or to him? He's made some joking comments here and there and there was their homoerotic bar flirting when they were talking about April, but what kind of tv friendship between dudes does not included bragging about sex? Dean never mentions or says a word about it to Cas. Not since the brothel thing YEARS ago. Dean just plain doesn't treat Cas in a way that portrays just a friendship.**

_(cont) I used to chalk it up to Dean not wanting to talk about those kinds of things in front of an angel, and that he used to hold Cas up on this otherworldly pedestal, and that still *might* be true to a certain extent. But as the show slowly chips away at the barriers between them and puts them on more even footing there comes a point where you have to ask yourself if motivations/reasons have changed, especially after all this time. Dean’s no longer “starstruck” like earlier seasons with Cas.  
_

Yeah, and I mean we see the difference in how Dean acts around SAM in this regard…

And how he reacts when they’re in a large group, including a hunter they’re not particularly familiar with (Wally), as well as HIS OWN MOTHER in the diner scene in 12.12.

Dean never directly hits on the waitress himself. He doesn’t really show any particular interest in her at all… until she shows an interest in Cas first. All the while Cas remains quietly clueless about the strange interaction Dean’s drawing him into (sniffing the waitress? oh dear)

Meanwhile the real discussion is about this demon hunt they’re planning, and Sam’s busy and distracted trying to connect up to the wifi, and Wally keeps talking about how he’s in way over his head and expressing his real worry over the impending hunt because he’s never taken on anything like a demon before.

Meanwhile Dean keeps up this ridiculous banter, even drawing WALLY into it, talking about something as ridiculous as giving Cas pointers on picking up waitresses, including the fact that it’s apparently a difficult thing to do.

And the whole conversation just seems to be a distraction, more for Wally’s benefit than Cas’s. Because Dean’s pretty confident that Cas isn’t gonna swing back by the diner after the hunt and try to actually pick up the waitress.

(especially after nearly dying and making love declarations and stuff… but that came later)

But now, five episodes later (six after 12.19), and at least a moderate chunk of time (weeks? maybe even months?) has passed, and has Dean even SEEN Cas in person again since then? They talked on the phone (apparently quite regularly) until the end of 12.15, but really it’s been a while since Dean’s even laid eyes on Cas again.

Post 12.12, that radio silence has gotta hurt.

But yeah, I can’t even recall the last time Dean’s mentioned sex at all in front of Cas aside from those specific incidents. It’s been a damn long time.

 

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 5.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.03) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn 9.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.09)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	79. Chapter 79

[Apr 26, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160029148245/mittensmorgul-a-couple-things-about-the-1219)

395 notes

[mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160023216470/a-couple-things-about-the-1219-promo-video-we):

> A couple things about[ the 12.19 promo video](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160018110390/justanotheridijiton-supernatural-the-future):
> 
> We have a definitive timeline of the cumulative elapsed time since 12.08 now: FOUR MONTHS. It’s been four months since Sam and Dean were arrested and thrown in prison. Which means it’s been just over two months since they escaped. Which means everything between 12.10 and the present moment has taken place within about two months…(including that two week span where Sam and Dean were on a hunting spree for the MoL, at the tail end of which Dean last heard from Cas before he went to heaven).
> 
> Sam sounds  _pleased_  to see Cas, but Dean sounds  _grumpy_. And heck what’s with that “our phone calls” thing, Dean? Was Sam calling Cas too? I don’t think so. We saw YOU calling him over and over again for the last month (or however long it’s been, but at least a few weeks), while Sam kept trying to be reassuring that Cas would be okay, because he’s always okay.
> 
> **Cas** : Where I was, the reception was… um, poor.  
>  **Dean** : No bars. (turning to Sam, incredulous) No bars. That’s his excuse. (turns back to Cas) Wow.
> 
> And really, Dean’s turning to Sam for backup here, and Sam’s got this face like,  _don’t you drag me into this, Dean. This is all you, dude._
> 
> And after that shot, Dean’s reaction as he turns to Sam there, that’s the last time we see Sam in this clip. The rest is close-up shots of Dean and Cas, making this scene ABOUT THEM.
> 
> I mean… they’re not being subtle about this.

Oh, I forgot! No bars in heaven:

IN 12.09, which dealt with Sam and Dean behind literal prison bars, when Cas was sitting IN AN ACTUAL BAR talking to Crowley about helping him find the Winchesters, the song in the background was  “En el Cielo No Hay Cerveza” which translates as “In Heaven There’s No Beer.”

And the last place we saw him on Earth (before the Heaven Portal) was at a bar, with the Heaven-coded Schultz beer sign giving him a nice lil halo… And we’ve seen that combination of that PARTICULAR Schultz sign with the El Sol sign before… in 5.18 when Cas saves Dean from saying yes to Michael in the alley.

(I also noticed it in the bar in 6.14 today, in the context of a woman continuing to spend social time with a group of men who were responsible for her sister’s death)

But also, Cas was not imprisoned in heaven, either. Which makes the fact he hasn’t contacted Dean in any way since he flitted off… rather concerning to Dean. Because the last time Cas flitted off to Heaven without a word, there were some SUPER SHADY extenuating circumstances involved. I’m thinking that Cas absolutely gets why Dean’s upset here, especially after their recent “I’m not mad, I’m worried” conversation… 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [supernatural beer signs](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-beer-signs) [i'll probably think of something else to add to this post in like five minutes anyway but here you go... :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27ll-probably-think-of-something-else-to-add-to-this-post-in-like-five-minutes-anyway-but-here-you-go...-%3AP)

 


	80. Chapter 80

[Apr 27, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160037711130/yes-the-scene-with-eileen-wasnt-about-deans)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: Yes, the scene with Eileen wasn’t about Dean’s feelings. But in the 12.14 scene, Mary is speaking to BOTH of her sons, and Sam had just much of a right to express his feelings there as Dean did. Cas is Sam’s friend, it’s reasonable that he’d have some sort of emotional response when Cas returns. I’m sorry I brought this up, I had no idea that you’re react like this.**

No, I’m sorry. Are you talking about the scene at the beginning of 12.14, the scene where Mary confesses to working with the BMoL? You feel that Sam was somehow emotionally excluded in that scene, and that Dean’s entire reaction in that scene wasn’t ABOUT SAM?

Like, that was why Dean was so livid that Mary could betray them and keep it a secret from them? These people who had kidnapped and tortured SAM?

Why do you think Dean bore them such ill will all season? But Sam DID express his feelings after Dean left the room. He reaffirmed Dean’s request for Mary to leave. Then Sam went on to spend most of the episode interacting with Mary while Dean was left alone. I don’t believe Sam was emotionally excluded from anything in 12.14, and was in fact the main driving emotional factor throughout the entire rest of the episode.

And yes, Cas is Sam’s  _friend._ But Cas is Dean’s ????? 

Like Eileen has been Sam’s ?????

Which is why Dean didn’t glom on and try and turn that into some sort of weird friendship group hug in 12.17…

I mean, the stark contrast in their different emotional reactions to these things was the the entire point of the scene. And it wasn’t to diminish the value of Sam’s reaction. It was to highlight the difference.

That’s all I was trying to say.

But [presenting it to me, in my inbox, anonymously, and framing it as if the writers must not care about Sam](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160029667865/thats-the-last-time-we-see-sam-in-this-clip-the), (attached below) I think you must have misunderstood my original post. I was not complaining about the fact that Sam was absent from the rest of the scene. ([my original post your original message was about btw](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160029148245/mittensmorgul-a-couple-things-about-the-1219)) (which is chapter 79 of this work)

I was actually commenting about the fact that Sam didn’t appear in the rest of the clip because this was specifically being highlighted as an emotionally charged moment between Dean and Castiel.

And  _I am pleased and excited about this_. I was not lamenting the fact that Sam was somehow excluded from this scene, in any way at all. But that seemed to be the only reaction you took away from my original post. Which I tagged ‘destiel.’ So… I don’t know what you were really expecting me to say about a post I made specifically to flail about an interaction between Dean and Cas, using Sam’s initial reaction and the framing of the rest of the scene around Dean and Cas alone.

Because that’s a standard romance trope thing. I mean, continuing to include the “friend” once the scene’s been set up this way would just be… weird. That was the whole point of my original post. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

 

 

[I mean I love Sam but honestly this is why I don’t talk about him as often as I’d like to](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/I-mean-I-love-Sam-but-honestly-this-is-why-I-don%E2%80%99t-talk-about-him-as-often-as-I%E2%80%99d-like-to) [and despite the fact that i don't even typically use a destiel tag anymore](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-despite-the-fact-that-i-don%27t-even-typically-use-a-destiel-tag-anymore) [and my blog header even provides that fact free of charge](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-my-blog-header-even-provides-that-fact-free-of-charge) [i do tag certain destiel-related posts](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-do-tag-certain-destiel-related-posts) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [for this sort of ongoing dean/cas stuff](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/for-this-sort-of-ongoing-dean%2Fcas-stuff) [but i love all of tfw and i think they've all been fairly treated emotionally this season](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-i-love-all-of-tfw-and-i-think-they%27ve-all-been-fairly-treated-emotionally-this-season) [just because ONE HECKIN SCENE from a promo clip happens to be screaming DESTIEL at us](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/just-because-ONE-HECKIN-SCENE-from-a-promo-clip-happens-to-be-screaming-DESTIEL-at-us)[doesn't mean the writers have suddenly forgotten that sam has feelings too](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/doesn%27t-mean-the-writers-have-suddenly-forgotten-that-sam-has-feelings-too) [he's just not miserably in love with cas like dean is AND THAT IS THE DIFFERENCE](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/he%27s-just-not-miserably-in-love-with-cas-like-dean-is-AND-THAT-IS-THE-DIFFERENCE) [which i am GLEEEEEEEFUL that they're making so obviously and abundantly clear with shots like this](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-i-am-GLEEEEEEEFUL-that-they%27re-making-so-obviously-and-abundantly-clear-with-shots-like-this) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 

Apr 26, 2017

34 notes

**Anonymous asked: "that’s the last time we see Sam in this clip. The rest is close-up shots of Dean and Cas, making this scene ABOUT THEM.” Just like the emotional scene with Mary at the beginning of ep 12.14, it’s all about Dean’s feelings, while Sam fades in the background. Do the writers even care about Sam’s feelings or pov anymore? *sigh***

Wait… does Sam have to be the absolute center of every shot, of every conversation, of every interaction on the show in order to demonstrate that the writers care about Sam’s feelings?

That’s just not realistic or relevant? I mean you mention TWO SHOTS from the entire season here that demonstrate that yes, Dean actually has feelings too, which are separate from Sam’s feelings, because Sam and Dean are two distinct and separate human beings and they are EACH entitled to have feelings separate from one another.

I did not feel like Dean was being left out when Sam was comforting Eileen in 12.17, because that scene was NOT ABOUT DEAN’S FEELINGS. It was about Eileen and Sam’s feelings.

Do you see what I’m getting at here?

That it sounds like you’re suggesting that nobody on the show is entitled to have any sorts of feelings that don’t directly involve Sam?

Just because Sam isn’t the emotional focus of a single scene doesn’t mean he’s been abandoned by the narrative. I mean, really.

 

 

[i have no idea how to tag this](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-have-no-idea-how-to-tag-this) [wank? possibly](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wank%3F-possibly) [but i think i did an excellent job biting my tongue here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-i-think-i-did-an-excellent-job-biting-my-tongue-here) [i'm not even putting this in the episode tag because >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27m-not-even-putting-this-in-the-episode-tag-because-%3E.%3E) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)


	81. Chapter 81

[Apr 27, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160053899255/617-this-episode-takes-place-primarily-in)

28 notes

6.17: This episode takes place primarily in Chester, Pennsylvania.

1\. Have I mentioned how many awful things happen to our boys in Pennsylvania? Because it seems like a lot…

2\. This town is called CHESTER. Not WINchester. But also not LOSEchester. Just more of the same Chester. I mean, like 5.16, this episode is a strange loop. This reality dissolved when Balthazar re-sank the Titanic and but the Cosmic Order to rights, but for ~reasons~ Sam and Dean were allowed to  _remember_  that world where Ellen and Jo were alive, where Bobby (and they) had a support system in their enlarged family. When they “wake up” and Cas tells them it had all been real, they don’t completely understand the point of it all…

3\. Because they haven’t put it together with Death’s warning to Dean, that it was all about the souls…

(granted that warning had been so dang vague, and they don’t yet fully understand just how far Cas has already gone in his plans to defeat Raphael, or that he was working with Crowley all along, or that Crowley isn’t actually dead and the plans to crack Purgatory are still entirely in the works. Sorta puts them behind the eight ball again.)

The first clue we get that something’s ~off~ in this episode is Sam and Dean climb into a Mustang and drive off without blinking, followed by Ellen showing up, taking care of Bobby because they’re  _married_. Incredible.

WTF is up with Dean’s terrible interrogation technique in this universe though?

**RUSSO** : Yeah. It’s a shame. But I’m not that close with my family, so, uh (sighs) is this gonna take long?  
 **DEAN** : No. Five minutes. Five minutes. Uh, can you – can you tell me anything, uh, noteworthy about the Russos?  
 **RUSSO** : Noteworthy? No. I mean, not exactly – average, you know, big, from Italy.  
 **DEAN** : I see. Uh, was anyone ever killed or maimed in a war or, you know, some other violent thing?  
 **RUSSO** : (scoffs) What do you mean?  
 **DEAN** : Like something so dark that it would sully future generations.  
 **RUSSO** : Uh… No.  
 **DEAN** : Good. Good stuff. Anyone own a slave?  
 **RUSSO** : What?  
 **DEAN** : Routine question. Any ties to the Nazi Party?  
 **RUSSO** : Excuse me?  
 **DEAN** : Did grandma ever piss off a gypsy?

Like, real smooth there, Deano.

They go into this case thinking it’s a “Family Curse,” But then unrelated people are turning up dead all over the country. These people aren’t all related, but they were all in the same boat. Literally. The Titanic.

**SAM** : Okay, I didn’t think that was possible. I thought you couldn’t change history.  
 **BALTHAZAR** : Oh, haven’t you noticed? There’s no more rules, boys.

but the small changes that resulted (and the 50,000 people alive who wouldn’t have existed at all) are really unsettling. Not only does Dean have no idea what an Impala is because apparently it never was made (and ACK can you even imagine a world where Baby wasn’t the thing that saved the universe? THE MOST IMPORTANT OBJECT IN THE UNIVERSE DOESN’T EXIST HERE?!), but Balthazar gives them a VERY GOOD REASON to not want to “re-sink” the boat:

**DEAN** : Apparently, a crapload of dominoes get tipped over if the Titanic goes down. And, uh, bottom line – Ellen and Jo die.

(oh, and an aside, we get a very interesting comment on why Cas is staying away from Dean, and sending Balthazar along to handle them on his behalf. It’s a seemingly jokey throw-away comment, but it really DOES explain why Cas has been avoiding them ALL SEASON LONG. Because like in s4 when Uriel told Dean that Cas was being kept away from Dean because “he likes you.” Well, Balthazar ups that ante to “in love with you.” And honestly what must Balthazar think about everything Cas has done for and with the Winchesters while supposedly being in charge of this war in Heaven? Even Rachel in 6.18 is ANGRY with Sam and Dean for distracting Cas from his mission in Heaven, but Balthazar just sort of rolls with it… because he gets it in a way Rachel didn’t… because Balthazar had abandoned heaven for humanity, too…)

**CASTIEL** If I know her – and I do – she won’t stop until you’re dead.  
 **DEAN** Awesome. So what do we do?  
 **CASTIEL** Kill her.  
 **SAM** Kill fate?  
 **CASTIEL** Do you have another suggestion?

But why would Fate suddenly target Sam and Dean now, over that, unless Cas had put them directly in her sights by doing something like… unsinking the Titanic? 

(taking a short break to go spelunking for excellent posts about this episode that somehow didn’t end up TAGGED for this episode, because past me sucks::

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/137236439960/elizabethrobertajones-firstdrafted>

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/136751024475/elizabethrobertajones-mittensmorgul>

and that’s just the entrance to the weird parallel universe rabbit hole…or maybe the tip of the iceberg, if you will. If you’ve got a lot of free time on your hands, have a nice time killing a day or two getting lost in the warren)

But these are all cosmic consequences. Change one thing, let someone live who was slated to die, and it has the power to eventually change the entire universe. And this parallel world has had a hundred years to change around these people who were supposed to have died on the Titanic, but who ended up surviving anyway.

Mary being back, in s12, and now Cas directly interfering with her dying again in 12.09, is a cosmic consequence event just like unsinking the Titanic. Only on a smaller and much more personal scale for the Winchesters. I’ll leave it to Atropos to explain:

**ATROPOS** You know what? I’ve kept my mouth shut. I could have complained, I could have raised a fuss, but I didn’t. But you know what the last straw is? Un-sinking the Titanic. You changed the future. You cannot change the past. That is going too far!  
 **CASTIEL** It’s Balthazar. He’s erratic—  
 **ATROPOS** Bull crap. This isn’t about some stupid movie. He’s under your orders. You sent him back to save that ship.  
 **CASTIEL** No, I didn’t. Why would I?  
 **ATROPOS** Oh, maybe because you’re in the middle of a war and you’re desperate?  
 **ATROPOS** Come on. This is about the souls.  
 **CASTIEL** You don’t know what you’re talking about.  
 **ATROPOS** That angel went and created 50,000 new souls for your war machine.  
 **CASTIEL** You’re confused.  
 **ATROPOS** No. You can’t just mint money, Castiel. It’s wrong…It’s dangerous… And I won’t let you.

And there we have it. It’s all about the souls, just like Death told Dean. We get our first look at just how entangled Cas is in this mess, but while all this REAL INTEL is being laid out for US, Sam and Dean are frozen in the background, apparently locked in time and unable to hear anything of this conversation. That’s why they buy into the lie that Cas tells them about it being all on Balthazar, and why they still haven’t understood Death’s warning:

**DEAN** Hold on. Uh…So, if you guys went a-and changed everything back, then that whole timeline or whatever, it just got erased?  
 **CASTIEL** Yeah. More or less.  
 **DEAN** Well, then, how come he and I remember it?  
 **CASTIEL** Because I wanted you to remember it.   
 **SAM** Why?  
 **CASTIEL** I wanted you to know who Fate really is. She’s cruel and capricious.  
 **DEAN** I’d go so far as “bitch.”  
 **CASTIEL** Well, yeah. You’re the ones who taught me that you can make your own destiny. You don’t have to be ruled by fate. You can choose freedom. I still believe that that’s something worth fighting for. I just wanted you to understand that.  
 **DEAN** So, wait. Did…Balthazar really, uh, unravel the sweater over a chick flick?  
 **CASTIEL** Yes. Absolutely. That’s what he did.

And he flaps away before they can even question it… Sam and Dean believe that Cas ordered the Titanic re-sunk solely to save THEIR lives. They don’t really get that Cas had ordered it unsunk in the first place to try and keep Dean out of the war in the first place… because EVERYTHING in s6 eventually comes down to that moment we see in 6.20 where Cas leaves Dean raking leaves in Lisa’s yard and accepts Crowley’s deal.

And we’re getting closer and closer to the moment when that entire trick is revealed.

 

 

[spn 6.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.17) [s12 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-meta-rewatch) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [lies and damn lies](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lies-and-damn-lies) [the rashomon effect](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-rashomon-effect) [COSMIC. CONSEQUENCES.](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/COSMIC.-CONSEQUENCES.) [we don't talk about season six](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/we-don%27t-talk-about-season-six) [s12 as s6 redux](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-as-s6-redux) [that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is)


	82. Chapter 82

[Apr 27, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160061259965/screencaps-from-hotn-weve-been-talking-about)

66 notes

  
[](https://66.media.tumblr.com/97ff8a75e4aa2aec53a2760780684ca8/tumblr_op37hgh8ih1qhtzbjo1_1280.jpg)   
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/6bd5077be065b033bd2b31eea7a4f96d/tumblr_op37hgh8ih1qhtzbjo2_1280.jpg)  


  
[](https://66.media.tumblr.com/cc3161e964ac8b632f85ab926b0aa862/tumblr_op37hgh8ih1qhtzbjo3_1280.jpg)   
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/8bfca8afb470339f4ab2beb5e68e7c97/tumblr_op37hgh8ih1qhtzbjo4_1280.jpg)  


  
[](https://66.media.tumblr.com/5af93838305618ca05d8f71e1f19340c/tumblr_op37hgh8ih1qhtzbjo5_1280.jpg)   
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/3f3ee3f8d0fa1c2e670c504a58bc0da2/tumblr_op37hgh8ih1qhtzbjo6_1280.jpg)  


  
[](https://66.media.tumblr.com/9d2b089152192b26105a66e93457fcbc/tumblr_op37hgh8ih1qhtzbjo7_1280.jpg)   
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/bd3edbd61775d8fa23a85ebe1134ea9d/tumblr_op37hgh8ih1qhtzbjo8_1280.jpg)  


([screencaps from HOTN](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fthumbnails.php%3Falbum%3D187%26page%3D4&t=M2NiNTUzZDFjNTRjZjlmOTNlMDUwMjUzZDViOWI3MGQyODIwNWM2MCx4OU45aHV2cg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160061259965%2Fscreencaps-from-hotn-weve-been-talking-about&m=1))

We’ve been talking about the romantic coding of the “Lover Descending the Staircase” shot, but I was just talking with [@tinkdw](https://tmblr.co/mfCCEp6XoX-GAEcJPdBiLxA) and trying to find a screenshot of Cas’s shirt in 9.06, and I couldn’t help but associate this with [that other post going around today](https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/160054047337/honestly-when-i-saw-the-picture-of-dean-looking-up) in light of the 12.19 promo.

Because everything about this situation is, on the surface, similar. Cas atop a “staircase” with light shining on them from above, Nora making what appears to be a “romantic overture” toward him (she even kisses his cheek and compliments him honestly), but that’s only insofar as the trappings of the situation are weak stand-ins for the real thing.

Everything from the ladder being a “false staircase,” to Cas himself being physically responsible for the light shining down on the entire scene (because he’s the one who’s installing that light source… it wouldn’t exist without him MAKING it exist, you see), to him climbing right back up after his exchange with Nora because there really  _wasn’t_  any romantic weight to the scene. It was all as fake as his identity as “Steve the Sales Associate.”

So that’s what the El Sol version of this trope looks like.

Now go click on that link of the other post, about what the REAL version of this trope looks like…

(hint: it looks like the 12.19 promo)

[spn 9.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.06) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [subversion and inversion](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/subversion-and-inversion) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[performing dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/performing-dean) [even though this was the Cas version of the performance](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/even-though-this-was-the-Cas-version-of-the-performance) [steve sales associate of the lord](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/steve-sales-associate-of-the-lord) [heh i haven't used that tag in a while](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heh-i-haven%27t-used-that-tag-in-a-while) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [revenge of the subtext](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/revenge-of-the-subtext)


	83. Chapter 83

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dean made cas a mixtape...

 [Apr 27, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160072595295/ive-actually-made-cds-of-my-favorite-songs-by-an)

 

 

 

 

69 notes

**Anonymous asked: I've actually made cd's of my favorite songs by an artist before, but that's still different than a mixtape. And usually, mixtapes specifically mean something romantic in the context of tv. Tv doesn't go by real life rules; you might make yourself a mixtape, and you might make a good friend one, but that's not usually how these things are portrayed on tv. And even if Dean did make it for himself, he still gave it away to Cas. Like. We know how protective/possessive Dean is of his stuff.**

Still, even in real life, I’ve had friends send me playlists. I’ve had friends even burn me CD’s of their favorite songs. But that’s something that takes like zero time. Just click some things and push a button and ZAP there’s some songs for you pal.

Making a mix tape is practically a freaking art form.

And even in real life I have never ever heard of anyone making one for someone else if it wasn’t a love thing.

But you’re right, it’s a trope. On tv (or in film), it takes on an even more elevated significance, especially since such a BIG DEAL was made of it. If Cas just needed an excuse to enter Dean’s room, he could’ve just gone to apologize. He could’ve brought Dean a beer. He didn’t even NEED a damn excuse. He just wanted to clear the air with Dean.

I mean, the whole conceit of the conversation being over a DAMN MIX TAPE that Dean made him, and gave to him at some unknown point in the past, and that he held on to the whole time he was in Heaven and thought he was supposed to RETURN TO DEAN oh my gosh oh my gosh

There is NO believable platonic reading of it.

None.

 

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [top 13 zepp traxx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top-13-zepp-traxx) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 

[Apr 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160073192085/dean-winchester-gave-castiel-the-mix-tape-after)

26 notes

**Anonymous asked: Dean Winchester gave Castiel the mix tape after Cas said "I love you"!!!!! Do you know what this means? Seriously, do you cuz for me it points straight to gay lovers. Ugh! I hate this show! Just when I think I'm out they pull me back in!**

Yes. I know what it means. Everyone over… 35? Knows what it means.

(not to say younger folks don’t know too, but to anyone over 35 or so, it’s freaking undeniable what it means) 

 

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [top 13 zepp traxx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top-13-zepp-traxx) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 

[Apr 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160104379170/did-mr-mittens-see-the-episode-wondering-what-he)

38 notes

**Anonymous asked: Did Mr mittens see the episode? Wondering what he thought of the mixtape!**

AAAHHHHH! Yeah, he saw it. But these are the sorts of things I don’t ask him about.

He knows what a mix tape is. He made me one. in 1996. I still have it.

I don’t even have a tape deck anymore.

but I can also tell you every song on that tape, and every time I hear ANY of those songs, I think of that tape.

Trust me. He KNOWS what a mix tape means.

(because for the last 21 years every time I hear one of those songs I tell him “That’s on my tape!” and he knows exactly what I’m talking about)

But I’m not gonna ask him. Because this is the agony of the casual viewer experiment. HE has to be the one to say something to ME first… That’s the whole point of these last five years worth of suffering. :D 

 

[casual viewer stories with mr mittens](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/casual-viewer-stories-with-mr-mittens) [mittens history](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mittens-history) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [top 13 zepp traxx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top-13-zepp-traxx)[anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Apr 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160105833300/do-they-even-make-cassettes-any-more-i-wonder)

45 notes

**[chitaquatoast](https://chitaquatoast.tumblr.com/) asked: Do they even make cassettes any more? I wonder which well loved tape Dean sacrificed for the sake of assuring that Cas had something decent to listen to? (Also, surely it should be "trax" not "traxx" (Cas not Cass). So one of those is definitely a kiss, oh Dean.)**

YES THEY DO! I just googled it. :D

[x ](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fdisplayimage.php%3Falbum%3D280%26pid%3D339057%23top_display_media&t=YTdiYzk3OTRmZmM3MWUzNTYwZDNlMTkzMTdkYWZiYjlkMGQ0ZGZlNCxiQlhUVXVPaA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160105833300%2Fdo-they-even-make-cassettes-any-more-i-wonder&m=1)Also in addition to the xx, please tell me the a in Dean’s name isn’t actually a 2. Because it looks like a 2.

and what’s with the weird pointy s too? 

And the odd mix of capital and lowercase letters?

And that’s apparently side 2 of the tape. I wonder what the label on side 1 says? Because you don’t JUST label side 2…

WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAAAAAAANNNN.

 

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [top 13 zepp traxx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top-13-zepp-traxx) [chitaquatoast](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/chitaquatoast)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[May 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160307321300/mittensmorgul-because-i-am-a-terrible-person)

271 notes

[ ](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/image/160307321300)

[mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160140190885/because-i-am-a-terrible-person-this-is-all-i):

 

> Because I am a terrible person, this is all I could think of during this scene. The Creation of A Mix Tape.

Since another version of this exact post I made last week seems to be circulating now, I thought I’d bring it back with the relevant meta attached:

In 11.23, Chuck left the Earth and Humanity in Dean’s hands. And after half of s11 being about the Hands of God as receptacles of God’s power on Earth, I don’t think it’s entirely out of hand (pffft) to apply the symbolism here.

Dean has literally been put in Chuck’s place, with Chuck’s blessing. But he’s not God, he’s the archetype of Humanity, that both Amara and Chuck acknowledged. God is no longer the “Ideal.” Humanity is. Free Will included in the kit.

GOD SAID SO.

And Cas is something “of God.” Once purely an angel, a wavelength of celestial intent, he’s now been irrevocably “tainted” by humanity. He’s BEEN human. He still remembers what it was like to be human, and yet he’s got his grace back again and is desperately trying to  _feel_  that humanity again while still being “of god.”

(no really, the “el” at the end of angel names literally means “of god.” Which is why I LOVE the fact that Dean calls him Cas (no -tiel, because Dean gets that Cas is no longer really only “of god.”)

And he gives Cas the tape back because IT’S A GIFT. YOU KEEP THOSE.

Cas’s humanity is  _a gift_. That he’s supposed to keep. Yet while working with the angels, he felt as if he was betraying his human family, even if everything he was doing was FOR them, to protect THEIR humanity, and spare them from having to kill an innocent in his name.

Thing is, Cas couldn’t do it either. Because he held on to that GIFT. His own HUMANITY. Which he’s currently got stashed away in his pocket while he himself seems to have been lured away by the nephilim.

HE’S GOT THE GIFT OF HUMANITY, GIVEN TO HIM BY DEAN HUMANITY WINCHESTER, IN HIS COAT POCKET OVER HIS HEART.

NONE of this is a coincidence. And I think ALL of it will be important in Cas finding himself again.

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [top 13 zepp traxx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top-13-zepp-traxx) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is) [if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you-say-%27mysterious-ways%27-so-help-me-i-will-kick-your-ass)

 

 

 

(sticking this in here for personal sentimental reference purposes)

 

 

 

[Jan 6, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169403776310/i-was-randomly-tidying-up-the-bookshelves-in-our)

326 notes

 

  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/33220568b8dbbb4cb6a73fb0a86f7595/tumblr_p25u11Wpu51qhtzbjo1_1280.jpg)  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/355feb2bbfd4e0433752eb14e464daf9/tumblr_p25u11Wpu51qhtzbjo2_1280.jpg)

I was randomly tidying up the bookshelves in our guest room today, where we store a lot of sentimental stuff (photographs, family heirloom type things, souvenirs, etc.), and I found The Tape. The Mixtape.

Mr. Mittens made me this tape almost 22 years ago. I thought I’d lost it, because after 12.19 aired and everyone was debating whether or not a mixtape was a romantic gesture, and those of us old enough to have ever given or received a real proper mixtape were like  _well, fucking duh it’s romantic_ … I was searching EVERYWHERE for this. I haven’t even owned a tape player since 2014 or so (when we sold our last car that had a tape deck in it). But still, to this day, any time I hear any of these songs, my first response is OH THIS IS ON MY TAPE!

Also notice the last song on side A– 

I think he gave me this in March or April 1996, a few months after we started dating. He basically spent his entire day off making it. And spending that much time thinking of the right songs, putting them in the right order, and making them fit on a single tape so you don’t have any weirdly cut off songs at the end or like four minutes of blank tape on one side, when he had literally thousands of songs to pick from… it was a labor of love.

This was not, in any universe, a casual gesture. 

[mittens history](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mittens-history) [top 13 zepp traxx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top-13-zepp-traxx) [funnily enough no zeppelin here tho... :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/funnily-enough-no-zeppelin-here-tho...-%3AP) [there is however Nothing Else Matters which is equally flooring :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/there-is-however-Nothing-Else-Matters-which-is-equally-flooring-%3AP)

 

 

 

 

(my comments tacked on to this post: http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160953978965/why-the-spn-mixtape-scene-from-12x19-is)

 

All of this ^^

13 words, 13th season referenced in an episode called “The Future.” Yes, this is definitely approaching the levels of meta that s12 has been hitting us with all season long.

And we’re only being told PART OF THE STORY. We’re seeing pieces of it from different perspectives and being asked to go back and fill in the gaps. The title of 12.23 (All Along The Watchtower, a song that “ends at the beginning”) only enforces this “backward” reading of the narrative. We’ve been saying all along that we’d only really begin to understand the whole story of s12 once we reached the end, because the end IS the beginning.

This entire season has been written this way, and it’s incredible.

(it’s been really difficult to analyze for this very reason, having both an overwhelming amount of mirrors, reversals, and parallels, references to past canon, etc., as well as only telling us certain parts of the story from certain perspectives, and the whole concept of ending at the beginning… it gets head-explodey really fast when you start looking closely at it)

(I also really appreciate the LotR reference to the mix tape gesture itself, and the “it’s a gift, you keep those.” But to take that one step further, Led Zeppelin were very obviously influenced by LotR, and MANY of their songs reference the story… including Ramble On (one of Dean’s two favorite Zepp songs), Misty Mountain Hop, The Battle of Evermore, Over The Hills And Far Away… I mean, Robert Plant even named his dog Strider… but just putting Dean and Cas in a sort of Aragorn/Arwen parallel pleases me TO NO FREAKING END because I did just that in [Hurry Up And Wait](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fworks%2F10127084&t=NDMzNDAxYmM3NGU5MDVmYzdiM2E4NjFmOTg4ZWE1YmU3OWY5OWEwZSxwQVJzc2FZbQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F160953978965%2Fwhy-the-spn-mixtape-scene-from-12x19-is&m=1) so of course that is a meta parallel I can heartily endorse :P)

 

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [top 13 zepp traxx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top-13-zepp-traxx) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [face your past head-on and find another way a better way](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/face-your-past-head-on-and-find-another-way-a-better-way)

 


	84. Chapter 84

[Apr 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160088017990/help-me-understand-cas-plan-going-into-the)

38 notes

**[not-she-which-burns-in-it](https://not-she-which-burns-in-it.tumblr.com/) asked: Help me understand Cas' plan going into the mixtape scene cause I'm drawing a blank. Dean says "He came into my room and played me" indicating the whole reason Cas went to see Dean was to get the colt... but what was his plan? Did he just know that if they talked about their feelings Dean would eventually flee the area giving him time to grab it? Was he trying to get Dean into bed (I wish). Was there no plan and he just saw the opportunity? What do you think!!**

HECK. I was trying to think of the best way to reply to this, and I think a listicle might help organize what we know. Plus who can resist a listicle opportunity?

What we know:

  * Cas has been ignoring/avoiding Sam and Dean for weeks
  * Because he was in Heaven being convinced that Joshua’s plan to kill Dagon and the nephilim was the only way to go
  * That despite Kelvin’s belief that Cas had abandoned the Winchesters and was doing all this FOR HEAVEN, his true mission declared TO KELVIN was that he was doing all of this so Sam and Dean wouldn’t have to kill “an innocent”
  * Cas’s only motivation for “betraying my friends, betraying my family” was to spare them from having to stain themselves with that atrocity…
  * Part of Cas’s mission in returning to the bunker was to apologize
  * But the part of the mission HEAVEN sent him for was that betrayal… to steal the Colt
  * Which somehow Heaven knew they were once again in possession of because???
  * Seriously how did Kelvin know the Winchesters had the Colt again? Has heaven been spying on the Winchesters all this time? Had they been watching and waiting and KEEPING THIS INFO FROM CAS that they were facing down Dagon alone in 12.17?
  * Once again the Colt lives up to Samuel Colt’s assertion that the gun was a curse (which is why I’m kinda pleased it’s gone now tbh)
  *  Then again, Cas did get all of Dean’s voice mails… one of which was about how they couldn’t even get Dagon with the Colt… So yeah, that’s probably how he knew they had it again.
  * (sorry these bullet points are terribly disorganized, I’m sorta working through all this as I type… >.>)



But the situation, as it happened, doesn’t work if Cas’s only mission for going into Dean’s room was to retrieve the Colt.

(I admit I might be emotionally compromised atm because I’m watching 6.20 in the background, and Dean’s just trapped Cas in a ring of holy fire… I am suffering severe emotional whiplash)

But I do think that Cas DID go to Dean’s room to acknowledge that he’d hurt Dean, because he knows that Dean’s outward anger is about his underlying WORRY, that Dean was only so upset because he CARED about Cas. And Cas was directly responsible for Dean feeling miserable about it all while he’d been avoiding him (for what he believed was Dean’s own good).

But Cas has several motivations for keeping Dean out of it, not the least of which is his desire to keep Dean out of this no-win situation (because to Cas even succeeding at killing Dagon and the nephilim is a loss for the person who has to actually DO it… think “blot on your soul” kind of loss here).

I think that’s why he offered to return the tape.  He was worried that Dean had lost his faith in HIM, and that maybe he didn’t deserve Dean’s trust. But Dean gave it back, told him to keep it, because it was a gift.

Trust and Faith.

Cas truly believed he was doing the right thing, sparing Sam and Dean, feeling like he needed to bring Dean a win, after so many losses… Like he had to do this to prove himself, even if Dean’s saying he already HAS faith in Cas and they’re better working together. But Dean may have proved his faith and trust in Cas, but Cas doesn’t yet feel he DESERVES it, you know?

Plus, how long has been trying to clear his perceived debt to Heaven? How long has he just been trying to do ONE THING RIGHT? Hell he was at a freaking low point there, even WITH Dean reassuring him, offering his trust in the form of a freaKING MIX TAPE GODDAMMIT WITH THE FANFIC TROPES ALREADY… :P

Throughout the episode, we saw proof that Cas DOES understand Dean (what offering him the tape back would mean, that Dean would keep the Colt under his pillow… because what did he have like a minute to search for it? Without completely tossing Dean’s room in the process? Yeah he knew exactly where to look for it, and had no idea where to look for more bullets for it… proving that he knew where Dean would keep the gun…), and conversely that Dean DOES understand Cas (talking about WHY Cas would be doing all of this with Kelly while he fixed Sam’s truck, that he’s so desperate for a win he’s not “seeing straight.” >.>)

The two of them understand each other SO FREAKING WELL, but for that one blind spot they have about each other. And that’s the blind need for Cas to protect Dean, and the blind need for Dean to keep Cas safe… I mean, it’s the cause of, and solution to, all life’s problems. They just need to work out the balance here.

I do think Cas was honestly trying to at least acknowledge to Dean that he understood how he’d hurt him, but he was still trying to complete his mission, to do that one thing he believed he had to do (again, worst phrase on the show, ever). And in doing so, he knew he was going to have to hurt Dean again. Despite Dean’s speech about working together.

He invoked Team Free Will, for heck’s sake.

And Cas left again.

Which is, I believe the crack through which he’d made himself vulnerable to the nephilim’s influence, and thereby lost his free will to it. But heck that’s not part of your question… okay back to the point.

Yeah, I think Cas was just winging it, and a lot of his motivation in going to Dean’s room was to clear the air between them. But he also knew he’d have to betray Dean again. That had to be weighing heavy in the back of his mind all through their conversation. And it just makes it all the more heartbreaking.

Send help please. I am Not Okay.

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn 6.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.20) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [top 13 zepp traxx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top-13-zepp-traxx) [not-she-which-burns-in-it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/not-she-which-burns-in-it)


	85. Chapter 85

[Apr 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160088615165/okay-but-dean-still-thinks-cas-drove-off-in-baby)

23 notes

**Anonymous asked: okay, but DEAN STILL THINKS CAS DROVE OFF IN BABY AND ABANDONED THEM AGAIN AND IM NOT OKAY CAS WANTED TO STAY HE WOULD HAVE STAYED**

No, I think he saw Cas get in the back seat. No idea what he thinks about how Kelly got hold of the keys…but he saw the car drive off, with Cas in the back…

And especially after he saw everything go down at the playground, I think he’s 100% positive that Cas Is Not Himself right now, that he’s been manipulated by the nephilim to act on its behalf…

If anything, he’ll be even more determined to get Cas back.

In s11 it was Lucifer, in s12 it’s Son Of Lucifer. But Cas didn’t choose this like he chose to say yes to Lucifer…

Yeah, Dean’s gonna be falling apart until he finds Cas again.

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [longing in technicolor](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/longing-in-technicolor)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	86. Chapter 86

[Apr 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160088811060/of-course-the-mixtape-is-a-romantic-gesture-the)

44 notes

**[punainenpuolukka](http://punainenpuolukka.tumblr.com/) asked: Of course the mixtape is a romantic gesture. The only time in fiction a mixtape does not have romantic connotations is in Guardians of the Galaxy, where Peter Quill's mom gives him two mixtapes before dying of brain cancer. And even then, they are coded as songs she liked but also something she listened with his father, whom she was madly in with and whom he had never met. So they're reminders of lost love, which could be said to be an unrelated spoiler for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 (sorry).**

Oh god, I actually just realized there is thing in the new movie that pretty much states that the giving of the tapes is very clearly a gesture of parental love, even if the content of the tapes are not. I don’t want to say more, people will want to watch it themselves. But like I said, Guardians of the Galaxy is that one exception that makes the rule, so of course Dean’s mixtape is a superromantic gesture.What a sweetheart. (Sorry again for the vague unrelated spoilers.)  
  


Yeah, I mean, the specific content of Dean’s tape was Led Zeppelin songs, which we KNOW Dean loves (favorite band, favorite songs, etc.), but in 12.01 he used the fact that John had woo’ed Mary with his knowledge of Zeppelin songs, making Zep THEIR ROMANTICALLY CODED THING between them, and Dean (their child!) used that romantically coded fact as proof of his identity (child to parent). 

So in a way this was Dean using that SAME THING HE LEARNED FROM HIS PARENTS WAS A ROMANTIC GESTURE (i.e. “handed down to him” like the tape in GotG– which I haven’t seen but know of)… and he turned around and gifted Cas that thing he’d held in his memory for the last 33 years as one of the things that was the cause of his own parents falling in love…

No matter how you break this down, that mix tape still means the same thing.

It’s not a platonic gesture.

 

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [top 13 zepp traxx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top-13-zepp-traxx) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[punainenpuolukka](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/punainenpuolukka)


	87. Chapter 87

[pr 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160090486675/i-think-its-nearly-guaranteed-that-dean-made-the)

37 notes

**Anonymous asked: I think its nearly guaranteed that Dean made the tape for baby and then gave it to Cas for the truck later. Not trying to diminish it, because its always been a ~thing~ esp in media (younger people are defs aware of this fact. plz). But I have a friend who still makes tapes for their old car, and another who makes mix-CDs [For Themselves] because that's all the car will take. Dean has also never wanted to douche up the car with any kind of jack, and who wants to always listen to albums in order.**

Speaking as an old person from the days when albums were created AS ALBUMS and not as a conglomeration of individual songs, and were intended to be listened to in order… It took me an inordinate amount of complaining and dragging my heels into ever even consider using the “shuffle” feature…

(sorry, I am the worst type of old music geek, but I’m adapting… slowly… I have even a playlist now! that’s right! ONE WHOLE PLAYLIST.)

And I think we’ve already established that a playlist =/= a mix tape, and a mix cd =/= a mix tape.

And yeah, we’ve seen Dean has some homemade tapes (in the pilot episode even) in his shoebox, but honestly that’s all the more reason in my mind that giving one of his FEW TREASURED POSSESSIONS TO CAS was absolutely not a casual gesture.

Heck, that almost gives MORE romantic weight to the gift.

 

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [top 13 zepp traxx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top-13-zepp-traxx) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)


	88. Chapter 88

[Apr 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160090594205/the-sad-thing-is-that-cas-keeps-thinking-he-needs)

43 notes

**Anonymous asked: the sad thing is that cas keeps thinking he needs to prove himself to dean even tho dean has made abundantly clear that all he wants is for cas to stay, be part of the team and of his life, it is frustrating that cas doesn't listen or just doesn't get it, he is valued as friend and as partner, agh it is so tragic**

I KNOW RIGHT?!

I mean, we know (and even HE knows) that Dean would accept him, and wants him around, just as he is.

But really he needs to prove to HIMSELF that he’s worthy of that, you know? That’s the tragedy of it.

You can tell him up and down, all the way around, that Dean just wants him for HIM, but he has no faith in HIMSELF.

GAH.

He hears Dean’s words, but they’re meaningless unless he believes he’s earned them, you know? And he doesn’t believe it.

Not yet, anyway.

 

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

[Apr 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160091464895/so-the-fact-that-he-made-him-a-mixtape-aside-i)

53 notes

**Anonymous asked: So, the fact that HE MADE HIM A MIXTAPE aside, I think what everyone is overlooking (thanks to that glorious glorious detail) is that "it's a gift. You keep those." Basically translates to "just because I'm mad doesn't mean I don't love you" Dean has been so emotionally vulnerable this season and it hurts**

Yep. He’s not even MAD, he was WORRIED.

**DEAN** : Cas, you can’t… With everything that’s going on, you can’t just go dark like that. We didn’t know what happened. We were worried, and that’s not okay.  
 **Cas** : Well, I didn’t mean to add to your distress. I… Dean, I just keep failing. Again and again. And when you were taken, I searched for months, and I couldn’t find you. Kelly escaped on my watch and I couldn’t find her, and I just wanted, t– I  _needed_ to come back here with a  _win_  for you. And for myself.

Dean couldn’t even look at him, he was so hurt. I mean… he didn’t even turn and look up at Cas until after that last line there ^^

Which reminds me, later in the episode when they confronted Cas at the motel room, Cas asked how Sam and Dean even found him:

**Dean** : Well, when you were scamming me for the Colt, Sam put a tracking app on your phone.

(as soon as the words leave Dean’s mouth, he can’t meet Cas’s eyes anymore… he can see from Cas’s reaction that those words hurt, more than he intended them to)

**Sam** : Cas, when you came back, you didn’t even look us in the eye.

(aw heck my dude, he looked Dean in the eye plenty during BOTH conversations, in the war room and in Dean’s room…)

YES I AM SUFFERING PLEASE TO BE SUFFERING WITH ME THANK

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [we are all suffering but we're gonna be happy about it? i guess? D:](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/we-are-all-suffering-but-we%27re-gonna-be-happy-about-it%3F-i-guess%3F-D%3A) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 


	89. Chapter 89

[Apr 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160091829030/i-know-youve-probly-got-a-box-full-of-messages)

77 notes

**Anonymous asked: I know you've probly got a box full of messages but. Just before deans team free will line. Cas motions between just the two of them "we?" "Yes dumbass, we" and then dean stands up and says "you, me..." and Jensen/Dean does a weird thing w/ his face before he says "Sam" and I'd like your thoughts on it if you get so inclined. It just felt like dean was berating himself for including Sam. Cas was asking about the two of them and Dean tacked on Sam and like... hated (?strong word) himself for it.**

Here I transcribed the conversation for reference purposes:

**DEAN** : Cas, you can’t… With everything that’s going on, you can’t just go dark like that. We didn’t know what happened. We were worried, and that’s not okay.  
 **Cas** : Well, I didn’t mean to add to your distress. I… Dean, I just keep failing. Again and again. And when you were taken, I searched for months, and I couldn’t find you. Kelly escaped on my watch and I couldn’t find her, and I just wanted, t– I  _needed_ to come back here with a  _win_  for you. And for myself.  
 **Dean** : You think you’re the only one rolling snake eyes here? Me and Sam, we had her. We had Kelly, and we lost her.  
 **Cas** : And if you find her again?  
 **Dean** : Sam’s working on it. Course he’s hell-bent on finding something that doesn’t mean killing her. Or her kid.  
 **Cas** : Right. And if he doesn’t find something? If you run out of time,  _could_  either of you kill an innocent?  
 **Dean** : We will find a better way.  
(Cas gestures between himself and Dean)  
 **Cas** : You mean  _we_?  
 **Dean** : Yes, dumbass. I mean we. You, me… and Sam, we’re just better together. So now that you’re back, let’s go Team Free Will. Let’s get it done.  
 **Cas** : I’d like that.  
 **Dean** : Great. I’d like a beer. 

But yeah, It’s true the three of them DO work better together, as a team… when they’re ALL working together (and not when some or all of them are lying or keeping secrets or working behind their backs).

And heck I keep getting bogged down and not writing the Catchphrase meta I’ve got stewing in my brain. Because this episode was FILLED with significant “catch phrases” from the show… even in this one short conversation:

  * You can’t go dark like that (reference to 6.20 and “Superman going Darkside” which was literally the phrase that “caught” Cas out)
  * we will find a better way (literally the catch phrase of s11, and continuing into s12, and one of my main meta tags for both seasons… facing your past and finding a better way)
  * dumbass (in 9.10… a couple of dumbasses, who are better thought of as “trusting. Less dumb, less ass.”)
  * Team Free Will (heck they have come a long way since 5.13 haven’t they?)



Because the game show that Dagon was laughing at? Was called “Catchphrase.” And she was laughing because the contestants kept  _guessing the wrong phrase_.

Heck I need to write that meta… 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	90. Chapter 90

#  [We need all three of that crap…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160097750615/we-need-all-three-of-that-crap)

[Apr 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160097750615/we-need-all-three-of-that-crap)

86 notes

If there’s a key, then there has to be a lock.

Keys are a HUGE thing in s12  I’d wanted to write coherent long meta on this subject, but I just need to get it out into the universe so we can all cry collectively over this.

There are at least three major keys to contend with in s12:

  1. The key to the bunker (their home is not secure). Apparently Men of Letters the world over have copies of that key, and nothing in their home is safe (even the safe). No wonder Dean kept the Colt under his pillow. which brings us to point 2…
  2. The Colt. One of its original purposes was AS A KEY TO THE HELLGATE in 2.22. Samuel Colt referred to the gun as a curse in 6.18. And heck if it hasn’t been a curse to the Winchester family over the years. It’s like a freaking monkey’s paw. (again, like a “the wishes turn bad” ancient Babylonian curse coin). And now it’s gone forever, but it still has more to unlock… like the bit of leaked coversation we have from 12.22 between Dean and Mary, and how their family was “cursed.” Which both begins and ends with the Colt… It’s got to unlock the rest of the Winchester Family Trauma.
  3. the keys to the Impala (aka Dean’s Metaphorical Soul). Cas asks for them, Dean tosses them over without a second thought (he trusts Cas completely with his soul…), but Cas doesn’t understand the significance of Dean’s trust there, and without realizing it, he casually tosses the keys over the seat, enabling Kelly to steal Baby. Cas was preoccupied (and so where Sam and Dean), and while their thoughts were elsewhere a creature who would mindwhammy Cas into serving its will instead of his own, instead of Dean’s. 



Heck it’s just like in 6.20 where Cas spent the whole episode asking God for a sign, asking for ANY sign that he’s doing the wrong thing here… and Dean tells Cas to stop. To trust him, to not do this. Just because.

And Cas doesn’t get that that was the sign.

Because he’s trying so hard to do the right thing, to bring a win home for Dean, for himself, that he missed the “win” right in front of him.

 

[spn s12 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-spoilers) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [because why not maybe the lock and key are a function of hands and hearts](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-why-not-maybe-the-lock-and-key-are-a-function-of-hands-and-hearts) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/seriously-though-why-doesn%27t-everyone-just-trust-dean%27s-gut-instincts-it%27s-like-he%27s-got-an-uncanny-magical-gift-here...) [*flings self into the sunshine*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Aflings-self-into-the-sunshine%2A)


	91. Chapter 91

[Apr 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160105181510/i-just-watched-2-episodes-in-a-row-and-its-like-3)

33 notes

**Anonymous asked: i just watched 2 episodes in a row and it's like 3 AM so maybe i've just forgotten what's up but why do you think they showed cas healing dean? to show that he's powered up? or as someone else touched on, maybe to show he's not completely controlled? also the dumbass line reminded me of less dumb less ass. :D**

YES HI oh gosh I hope you got some decent sleep after all that :D

Yeah, I’ve written elsewhere (and other people have too, that I’ve seen) about the dumbass being a callback to 9.10 and “couple of dumbasses” who Cas preferred to thing of as “trusting… less dumb, less ass.” But apparently the “couple” part was accurate… >.>

But there’s been a couple of other times when Cas healed Dean while still ~not quite right~. Like in 8.17, the original flavor Crypt Scene.

Yeah, Dean broke him from Naomi’s control, but as soon as he picked up that tablet, I’ve always theorized he was under ITS control. Including when he healed Dean. It had that same sort of weird calm to it. 

**DEAN** : Well, w-what broke the connection?  
 **CASTIEL** : I don’t know. I just know that I have to protect this tablet now.  
 **DEAN** : From Naomi?  
 **CASTIEL** : Yes. And from you.

And yeah, Dean was mad in 8.21 because Cas didn’t trust him, but I don’t think it was about trust at all. I think it was compulsion. The tablet “protecting itself.” And I think it’s a similar situation with the nephilim. Right after he notice Dean is hurt and heals him:

**Cas** : Thank you for coming to fight for us.  
 **Dean** : Are you okay?  
 **Cas** : I am. I’ve been so lost. I’m not lost anymore. I know now that this child must be born, with all of his power.  
 **Sam** : You can’t actually mean that.  
 **Cas** : Yes, I do. I have faith. We have to go.  
 **Sam** : Hey, Cas. W-wait a second. Wait. Hold on. Just…  
 **Cas** : You have to just trust me.  
 **Dean** : No, no, no, wait. Okay. Whatever that thing did to you, we’re not gonna let you just walk away.  
 **Sam** : Yeah. That’s not gonna happen.  
 **Cas** : Yes it is. *boops Sam and Dean unconscious* I’m sorry.

In the truck:  
 **Kelly** : What did he tell you?  
 **Cas** : He didn’t tell me. He showed me. The future.

Because honestly? The crypt scene in 8.17 always felt incomplete to me, because Dean did break through Naomi’s control, but THAT DAMN ANGEL TABLET compelled Cas to RUN with it, to keep it safe and hidden from EVERYONE, to the point where he hid it INSIDE HIS OWN BODY oh my gosh. Like that’s not weird at all >.>

So yeah, I think this scene sort of felt the same to me, like the nephilim has exerted the same sort of control over Cas that the angel tablet did.

 

[spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [the reverse crypt scene](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-reverse-crypt-scene) [the reverse reverse crypt scene](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-reverse-reverse-crypt-scene) [there are too many crypt scenes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/there-are-too-many-crypt-scenes) [but i think we need just one more to cover all the necessary open points...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-i-think-we-need-just-one-more-to-cover-all-the-necessary-open-points...)[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous) [the crypt scene](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-crypt-scene)


	92. Chapter 92

[Apr 29, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160125301540/i-think-theres-a-zero-chance-of-the-nephilim)

47 notes

**Anonymous asked: I think there's a zero % chance of the nephilim being truely good without a catch. Having a superpowered child as a plotline that just a innocent babs is not a storyline. Not to mention it's already enforcing some form of a plan and it's not even born yet; saving Kelly, getting rid of Dagon, getting Cas and Cas to protect him even over Sam and Dean, the fact after the golden eyes Kelly and Cas are both super invested in the nephilim beign born with powers, it wants these powers for a reason**

RIGHT?!

Honestly since that creepy shot in the doctor’s office in 12.17 where the baby turned its head like it was looking directly at the doctor on the sonogram I’ve been giving it a lot of credit for being “decidedly not human normal.”

(I mean that whole scene happened because WE NEEDED TO SEE HOW NOT-NORMAL THAT BABY WAS. So not-normal that Dagon IMMEDIATELY reverted to mind-wiping the doctor in order to stop him from saying just how not-normal the baby was out loud to Kelly…)

I will start by reaffirming that the creepybadwrong magically growing baby thing is ubergross to me. I wish they’d written pretty much ANYTHING else this season, because dammit we just HAD Amara doing the creepy baby thing LAST SEASON. Okay, enough damn creepybabby stories. We get it. It’s gross. Pls stop *coughbucklemmingcough*.

But it’s what we have, so…

I’ve got SOME suspicions of what might be going on with the kid, some of which are just wild speculation, but some of which I’m pretty confident about. I’ll be vague and leave you to decide which are which…

The kid is half-human, but also half-angel (which means grace). We know very little about how angels are made, but speculation seems to run high toward “they spring fully formed into existence.” I love comics and fic of the “baby angels” growing up and learning how to be good grown-up angels as much as the next person, but I have no illusions that canon angels were ever “babies.” Or that they were ever anything other than fully-formed celestial wavelengths of intent. They were very literally created by God.

(and great now I can’t stop thinking about Athena springing fully formed from Zeus’ head… but honestly? That’s sort of how I’m imagining the nephilim here. Because Kelly ISN’T an immortal god who can recover from something like that…)

(have I mentioned today JUST HOW MUCH TIME I spend thinking about the nature of angel grace? Okay. I mentioned it now. :D)

So because this child IS “half angel,” or at least “half angel grace,” I firmly believe that even if its “human side” is just a human-ish looking baby, the part of it that is an angel is already fully-developed. The only thing holding it back now is the biologically human bits. And it’s even building THAT at a much faster than normal-human rate.

No wonder it’s sort of “using up” Kelly in the process. At least that’s how I’ve been thinking of this.

It’s not good or evil, it’s  _selfish_. Which I suppose might be considered “evil,” but it’s not making that choice for itself. That’s just what it does. Like, mosquitoes aren’t inherently evil, they’re just trying to live. Heck, even like most of the monsters in SPN. They’re just trying to survive, stay under the radar of the hunters who’d see them dead, and go about their business.

The difference with the nephilim is that combination of human free will (that comes with the kit!) combined with the unwavering nature of angelic certainty (I won’t call it “faith,” because in this case, it’s not).

Think of this particular baby’s parentage, too. Yes, Lucifer is Fallen, but he is still an archangel. He’s inherently a creature of Heaven even if he’s been exiled to Hell. He’s still made of the same grace that all the other angels (or archangels, since they seem infinitely more powerful than run of the mill seraphs) are made of. There’s nothing inherently “evil” in Lucifer’s grace.

Heck, even LUCIFER was set on destroying his own creations, the demons. He has just as much disdain for demons as he does for humanity. So nursemaid Dagon never really stood a chance here.

And now I can’t help think back to Jesse the Antichrist, whose powers came online when the final seal broke. But he’d had what, 9 or 10 years to learn how to Human properly before he had his powers sprung on him? Yeah, this baby doesn’t even have that…

So it senses Dagon’s intentions for it, and has already decided (because it’s half ANGEL remember), that this demonic abomination must die. It must know Kelly cares for it, and I think it’s pretty clear that we’re supposed to assume that she cares for it because IT IS MAKING HER CARE FOR IT, because it needs her the way an angel needs a vessel, and honestly that’s where my brain just wants to start screaming and run away from talking about this entire plot arc, but the show insists on giving it to us so here I am stuck with this squicky horror…

Where was I? Right… 

(nvm I have no idea where I was because I had to take a mental break from typing this. have i mentioned that everything about the nephilim completely squicks me out? okay… deep breaths mittens we can do this)

We’ve seen Lucifer communicating with Dagon in some sort of hybrid angel radio/prayer/demonic blood bowl phone without the bowl of blood telepathic way. I assume that’s because he can’t perform that trick directly with Kelly (or with the baby). So Dagon’s been the go-between out of necessity. But Dagon is still  _a demon_. Not a creature of Heaven, not a creature of Angel Grace (despite having a lot of similar powers to angels). By angel standards, she is an abomination.

I mean, so’s the nephilim, but I don’t think the nephilim would consider itself an abomination, you know? It is what it is. And it wants to be born and to live and continue to do its thing, and has the power to manipulate its environment to suit its needs.

I think it demonstrated that admirably when it healed Kelly from her suicide attempt. It couldn’t allow its current vessel (because I honestly don’t think it considers Kelly anything more than a vessel it needs to grow its human body for it) to “fail.”

But we’ve seen how Dagon was able to “influence” humans, via her mind-wipe of the doctor. I think the “angel side” of the nephilim has been mostly “dormant” up to this point, either because the human side was still developing enough for it to actively engage this way or because Dagon was somehow keeping it under control until it grew powerful enough to thwart that control.

Going back to what we learned about nephilim in 12.10, they apparently “grow into their power.” So that theory isn’t coming entirely out of left field, here.

So this baby is “growing into its power.” It’s less than a month from being born. At the beginning of 12.19 Kelly was so adamant that it NOT be born that she attempted to kill herself. Then she agreed to Joshua’s suicide plan of walking through the Heaven Portal. But the nephilim thwarted THAT as well.

It saw its opportunity in Kelly’s moment of weakness with Cas in that motel room, and I can’t help but believe that when her eyes flashed gold, that was the death of Kelly’s free will. That was the nephilim taking full control over her beliefs and actions. If only they’d showed up with the grace extraction sooner, I think she would’ve agreed to let them try it. But it was already too late, and she refused. Because the NEPHILIM refused for her.

She says she has “faith” that the child being born with its full power will “save the world.” But I think that’s the nephilim talking through her.

She went from actively trying to die and take the baby with her to doing EVERYTHING in her power to see it born, even though she knows it will kill her. And Cas confessed his own weakness, that he wished he had her faith, and that’s where the nephilim granted his wish… Kelly took Cas’s hand at the sandbox and the nephilim gave Cas faith.

Do I believe this is “real faith?” Absolutely, 100% NO.

And here’s where my second anon in my inbox seems relevant to mention here:

_What do think will happen to Cas’ narrative and endgame now? I had been predicting (hoping) that his whole arc has been moving closer to a point where he’d choose the Winchesters for good. Now, after 12x19, it seems different. It’s like a bit of season 4 Cas was revived. He’s got this same type of faith he used to have, and maybe he’ll be raising a baby next season. Do you have any predictions? I’m hoping his endgame is still with the Winchesters, but now I’m concerned…  
_

CAS DOES NOT HAVE “THE SAME TYPE OF FAITH HE USED TO HAVE,” and I honestly DO NOT BELIEVE that he will be raising this baby next season.

He’s being CONTROLLED by the nephilim right now.

Remember in 6.06 when Dean asked for truth, and then got SLAMMED with it? Remember in 4.08 when people were making wishes on this ancient cursed Babylonian coin and all the wishes turned very bad? Remember in 12.17 when Mick of the MoL mentioned he was brought into the MoL when he pickpocketed  _an ancient cursed Babylonian coin_?

The wishes go bad. They violate the natural order. They invoke Cosmic Consequences.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

I think the nephilim itself is a sort of embodiment of this concept of Cosmic Consequences. It’s a factor of chaos, a violation of the natural order.

I am so freaking tempted to go off into an expository rant about how Dean Winchester is the embodiment of Balance and Order (despite having “violated the natural order” again and again). But he IS “Humanity.” He is Free Will. He was the one Cas did everything for, and he was the one both God and the Darkness designated as “the firewall between light and darkness.” He’s the one Death taught his lessons to about the natural order, and he’s the one who KILLED Death… Essentially every character on the show has eventually bent to his will. INCLUDING FREAKING GOD HIMSELF.

Dean wanted the universe to be in balance, so it was balanced. Hooray 11.23.

But then Mary came back. Because DEAN needed to discover that balance in himself, and the only way to find balance is to understand the imbalance. She’s been the cosmic consequence unbalancing the natural order since she showed up.

All season I’ve been waiting for the MoL storyline and the Lucifer storyline to intersect… and I think it’s all going to hinge on Mary, and on Dean finally getting “what he needs most” from Mary… i.e. an acknowledgement of the imbalance within himself that’s been built on the pedestal he’s kept Mary on since he was four.

The nephilim, in contrast, seems to be a force of anti-free will. And this goes right back to one of the show’s core principles, that free will and choice are greater than blind faith and destiny. Right now it’s seemingly stripped Cas of all his doubts, all his free will, all his choice. He asked for faith, and he got SLAMMED with it…

But NOTHING about it is CAS. It’s not his choice, not his free will. Because we know he’d rejected Heaven and duty and destiny, and had been doing EVERYTHING FOR THE WINCHESTERS. HIS FAMILY. So this sudden attack of “faith” that came in the form of the same weird glowy-veiny laser-eyes treatment that we last saw him suffer in 7.17 when he took on Sam’s Hell Damage and left him CATATONIC and damaged… well… 

What I’m saying is he needs something to break free from the will of the nephilim, to regain his own free will…

What broke the connection, Cas?

He’s gonna have to plainly answer that question this time.

Okay I think that’s as much brain as I have for this :D

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn 12.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.17) [spn 4.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.08) [spn 6.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.06) [the wishes turn very bad](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-wishes-turn-very-bad) [cosmic. consequences.](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/cosmic.-consequences.) [dean is the center of the universe](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-is-the-center-of-the-universe) [nephilim](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/nephilim) [order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [no seriously if you take the destiel out of this storyline it makes no sense](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/no-seriously-if-you-take-the-destiel-out-of-this-storyline-it-makes-no-sense) [the entire a-plot hinges on this love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-entire-a-plot-hinges-on-this-love) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)


	93. Chapter 93

[Apr 30, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160155431940/12-i-think-well-eventually-get-to-the-point)

34 notes

**Anonymous asked: (1/2) I think we'll eventually get to the point where Dean and Cas say how much they mean to each other and have it not be under stressful/life or death circumstances. I think that's what their interactions have been missing. Because all the times i can think of that they've made that step have been great and a move in the right direction, but there's still a lot of air left to clear. And Dean still speaks in genuine but general terms when speaking of affection to Cas.**

(2/2) Like the finale of last season and then this ep, Dean talks about how important Cas is to team free will, and Cas said a somewhat ambiguous “i love you” while dying. There have been a couple examples of one on one confessions under duress, but we still haven’t gotten a “i want to say what you mean to me specifically” talk. Again, lots of misunderstanding and air left to clear but i love what this season is doing to chip away at that!!  
  


YES YES YES. I mean, I think we’re at a point now where “we need you” is absolutely not enough here. Even “I need you” isn’t cutting it.

Heck, it reminds me of Cas interrogating Soulless Sam while trying to diagnose what was wrong with him:

**Castiel** : Sam… What are you feeling now?  
 **Sam** : [scoffs] I feel like my nose is broken.  
 **Castiel** : No, that’s a physical sensation. How do you feel?  
 **Sam** : Well, I think –  
 **Castiel** :  _Feel_.

They were talking past one another. Not that I think either Dean or Cas is soulless or incapable of understanding their feelings, but they are deliberately dodging around them, believing that they’re saying what the other wants or expects to hear. They’re  _thinking_  to much and not  _feeling_  enough.

Feeling can be dangerous.

But I think something bigger than “the three of us,” or “you’re our family” is gonna be required to free Cas this time around. And it’s gonna require feelings.

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [HECK I JUST WANNA LOCK THEM BOTH IN A SMALL ROOM AND MAKE THEM TALK](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/HECK-I-JUST-WANNA-LOCK-THEM-BOTH-IN-A-SMALL-ROOM-AND-MAKE-THEM-TALK) [AND MAYBE HAVE A BUZZER I CAN PUSH EVERY TIME THEY START UP WITH THIS DEFLECTION SHIT](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/AND-MAYBE-HAVE-A-BUZZER-I-CAN-PUSH-EVERY-TIME-THEY-START-UP-WITH-THIS-DEFLECTION-SHIT) [Cas you're our-- BZZZZZZZT okay okay MY bro--BZZZZZZT FINE OKAY](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Cas-you%27re-our---BZZZZZZZT-okay-okay-MY-bro--BZZZZZZT-FINE-OKAY) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	94. Chapter 94

[Apr 30, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160167138730/that-disconnect-on-lovingbeing-loved-is-one-of)

109 notes

**Anonymous asked: That disconnect on loving/being loved is one of the major conflicts between Cas and Dean (as I see it). Now, this might not be popular but I think Dean did a lot of mistakes in their earlier relationship that has contributed to Cas not getting it now (along with Cas' angelic perspective, of course). Dean is trying like hell to undo some of the damage, kudos to him, but that's why Dean gets in a fit when Cas doesn't answer, risks his life, takes stupid risks and Cas being all "this not ok now?"**

Heck okay… Over dinner, Mr. Mittens was talking to me about Scorpion (which he watches and I don’t, really, other than sort of letting him keep me informed about the character dynamics, because I watched the first season with him and it’s nice to know that the various characters are getting along and doing well…)

I do have a point bringing up this completely different TV show, I swear…

The show itself is about this group of geniuses who are all sort of ~socially outcast~ because of their various talents, to the point that most of them had been wanted by various governments for various criminal activity… but they’re all assembled together to solve these sorts of global threat type situations.

The main character is this guy called Walter who’s a supergenius who was arrested for hacking NASA when he was a little kid. So he’s always been on the U.S. Government radar as a potential threat. But he’s not American by birth. This will be important later…

Anyway, in the pilot episode they meet this woman named Paige who was working as a waitress at a diner. She’s just a normal working mom, but she falls in with this group of geniuses because she’s got her own sort of genius: translating humanity for these people who despite being brilliant are sort of “rusty” in the “people skills” department…

So Walter and Paige sort of have this interesting dynamic, and are both attracted to each other, but he’s got like ZERO in the way of people skills or understanding his own feelings, and she thinks she’s got nothing to offer him because she’s just this regular person.

Her son, however, is also brilliant, and Walter helps her to understand her son while she helps him to begin to understand people in general.

At one point Paige discovered that Walter was secretly married to one of the other members of the team, but it was only so he could gain U.S. Citizenship, and she felt betrayed that he’d lied to her about something that big… even though he never had any romantic interest at all in that other character (and all this was only revealed because someone else had asked her to marry them, and she’d kept turning them down, because she couldn’t divorce Walter without him getting deported, but that was supposed to remain a secret… blah blah blah, misunderstandings ensue before the truth finally comes out…)

(ETA: This other character Walter was married to? Her name is Happy.)

Three seasons later, whoops Walter has made a sort of deathbed (drug-induced) love confession to Paige that he didn’t remember making (because drug-induced deathbed confession) BUT IT WAS VIDEOTAPED and then used against him later. When he realized what he’d confessed to her, he began pushing her away.

He found her a “regular” job so she wouldn’t be “in danger” from working with the team anymore, pushing her away emotionally, because he was terrified that now he’d confessed his love to HER that she would use that confession to break his heart. (because why would she love me back…)

Meanwhile she’s angry with HIM for pushing her away because she WANTS to work with the team, and it’s not his job to babysit her…

So Mr. Mittens is telling me this entire sordid tale, and I asked him, “But do you think they’re endgame for each other? Like they’ll eventually get together?” And he’s like “Absolutely. It’s obvious how much they love each other. They just need to communicate.”

And I sat through that entire description from him while eating a pancake like this:

(I have this gif saved as “dean chews judgmentally”)

So you can probably make all the comparisons ever to Dean and Cas through Paige and Walter, because the underlying story is almost beat for beat identical.

So tell me they aren’t writing this as a romance. 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [I think I'm just gonna show this post to mr mittens if he doesn't get the destiel by 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/I-think-I%27m-just-gonna-show-this-post-to-mr-mittens-if-he-doesn%27t-get-the-destiel-by-12.23) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	95. Chapter 95

[Apr 30, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160175033195/12so-if-you-devils-advocate-and-say-that-because)

76 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2So, if you Devils advocate and say that because Dean always puts trust in ppl and seems to get let down and since he gets very emotionally attached 12x19 was just Dean reacting to getting let down over and over and over BUT they added that damn mixtape and the conversation that follows becuz of it. That changes everything, because unless they use it as a plot point later, it had no purpose.**

_2/2We already know Dean and Cas are suppose to be bffs. We didn’t need a mixtape to know that. So I think, as some have said, that’s what gives it so much weight. This wasn’t Dean simply getting let down over and over. This was Dean getting his heart broken, over and over. The mixtape and it’s meaning in televison/movies is how they’re saying “No, there’s more to this.”_

_3/2! Lol tape 2 part anon again. I forgot to add that, when the writers/Dean want us to know Cas is Dean’s best friend, they say it, with words. Dean can call someone a friend just fine. But Dean has trouble with the L-word and the writers (if they are going there) aren’t ready to use it now either. So, they have to show it. With mixtapes spelled unnecessarily with 2 xx’s._   
  


Hi there… I think this is all the same anon, right? I just got these out of order in my inbox, jumbled together with another multi-part anon and several other messages so I’m just crossing my fingers that I put the puzzle pieces together correctly… please feel free to come yell at me if I didn’t… It’s late, the coffee wore off hours ago.

But yes to all three of these things. :D

And I’ll raise you this: Including that otherwise seemingly unnecessary scene also gave us the audience a HUGE reminder that Dean and Cas don’t only interact when we can see them on camera. I figured it out when I was writing Revenge of the Subtext, and it was a huge part of that story– the fact that one season of the show covers approximately one year in the lives of the characters.

Out of that entire year, we see about SEVENTEEN HOURS. That’s it. So what happens in the other 8,743 hours in their year? Heck, 8,767 hours in a leap year. :P

Scenes like that one, where we learn that at some point in the past, Dean GAVE Cas that tape, that they had an interaction we DIDN’T see, reminds us that heck, they must have A LOT of interactions that we don’t see… They don’t just exist in a vacuum when they’re not on camera.

It was just like Sam’s reminder about Gadreel. We remember how much angst that entire storyline caused for Sam and Dean both. It fractured their relationship and left them both in terrible places. Yet their being able to talk so casually about it now, even to the point where they’re joking with each other while discussing it, reminds us that  _time has passed_  and  _they have worked through this emotionally_. Even if we didn’t see it. It reaffirms that this conversation (or likely conversations) have happened, and they have at the very least come to an understanding and forgiven each other.

It’s also like every time Sam asks Dean if he’s heard from Cas. Sam gets that they talk to each other pretty regularly (or they did before Cas went back to Heaven). We might never get to see them having those conversations, or have any idea what they might talk about, but  _we know they are having them_.

It’s just one more reminder that there is stuff happening in these guys’ lives that the writers want us to think about, even if it all can’t possibly fit into the 17 hours a year that we get to see on screen.

Add your own interpretation of just why they thought they needed to spend five minutes of those precious 17 hours telling us specifically that Dean made Cas a mix tape…

 

[top 13 zepp traxx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top-13-zepp-traxx) [silent storytelling](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/silent-storytelling) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous)


	96. Chapter 96

[Apr 30, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160175384885/that-last-post-got-me-thinking-that-this)

29 notes

**Anonymous asked: That last post got me thinking that this disconnect showed very clearly in the beginning of the season (can't remember the name). Cas says he's going backstage to distract Lucifer like that's not suicidal at all and Dean calls him on it with help from Sam. Cas is so ready to jump on any grenade that he will invent some if there aren't any around and Dean is developing an ulcer and high bloodpressure trying to stop him. Dean is starting to really understand that CAS IS NEVER OK, EVER.**

HAAAAAAAaaaaaaaoh gosh. Yeah, back in 12.07 (It’s called Rock Never Dies, in case you were still trying to remember :D), they were all at a pretty horrible place about what it might take to stop Lucifer. But Cas specifically felt responsible for that mess. He was the one who said yes and essentially bought Lucifer his ticket out of the cage in the first place. He’s willing to do anything to put that mistake to rights, even if he dies trying… It’s not a great mental place to be in.

But as of 12.08, as far as he knows, Lucifer IS back in the cage. That WAS a win, for all of them (well, as far as everyone aside from Crowley knows…)

And the nephilim existing at all is a direct result of Cas having freed Lucifer as well. He made it possible for Lucifer to have been free to make the nephilim in the first place.

And he’s seen pretty directly how that’s affected (read: ruined) Kelly’s life. She had it pretty good, working in the White House, in love with the President, talking about maybe having a family with him someday… And now she’s been on the run, guarded by a demon, carrying Lucifer’s baby. None of which she asked for. She was driven to kill herself over all of this, and it’s not likely she’ll survive the birth of the baby anyway.

And now she’s lost everything, and has become just one more thing Cas feels responsible for ruining.

The up side of all of this? I really do think Dean understands all of this. He just needs better words than, “we’ll find a better way.”

The words he needs are “I understand, it’s not your fault, we’ll fix this together, because I love you too, dumbass.”

And then they can go out for pancakes.

 

 

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [spn crack sort of](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-crack-sort-of) [at least for the pancakes bit](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/at-least-for-the-pancakes-bit) [sorry i tried to make waffles today and accidentally made pancake batter instead](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sorry-i-tried-to-make-waffles-today-and-accidentally-made-pancake-batter-instead) [so i've been half-irate about pancakes for hours now :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/so-i%27ve-been-half-irate-about-pancakes-for-hours-now-%3AP) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	97. Chapter 97

[May 3, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160271920510/hi-brings-offering-of-tea-and-cookies-so)

44 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi! *brings offering of tea and cookies* So assuming Dean is bi (bc duh), he's usually portrayed one of three? ways: totally oblivious (and someone like Sam has to tell him he likes dudes), aware but repressing that shit like crazy (usually bc he grew up thinking that's not ok/not manly), or aware but more concerned that Cas wouldn't love him back/it wouldn't work out for them. I'm curious what you and the rest of the meta crew think is more likely?**

Eh, I think there’s no way in high heckeroo he isn’t aware. He’s not an idiot, you know? I don’t even know if it comes down to “repressing because it’s not manly” anymore. I think it’s more like, “ignoring it because that’s just easier than dealing with it.”

It’s just easier to hit on the waitress at the diner when he’s only gonna be in any one town for a few days at most than to feel out a place as to how welcoming and tolerant it might be to LGBT folks, you know? He’ll do the easy thing rather than risk drawing unwanted attention to himself. Especially considering a lot of their hunts bring them to red states…

I think a lot of his reasons for keeping Cas at arm’s length have been discussed ad nauseum. There’s a loooooong history of them alternately pushing each other away, and a serious lack of communication about what they really want from each other, and what they mean to each other. They’re both making assumptions based on the other’s choices, but they’re wrongly basing those assumptions on the  _surface-level appearance_  of said choices. They are literally missing ALL OF THE FUCKING SUBTEXT.

(and heck, I was just having this chat with Lizbob this morning, that THIS DESCRIBES S12 TO A TEE, so here have some more of my vague commentary on my overarching meta theory about the entirety of s12– which if you’re looking at the surface level plot for direction, you’re gonna be hopelessly lost– just as lost as Dean and Cas seem to be regarding what they are and what they want to be to each other)

(maybe i should make a less-vague post about this, but right now as the situation stands it would just sound like wank– not against the show, but against viewers… :/ Welcome to the inside of my head, it’s dark in here, I’ll man the flashlight.)

 

[spn s12 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12-speculation) [dean winchester is bilingual](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-winchester-is-bilingual) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	98. Chapter 98

[May 8, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160448836105/807-how-many-ways-can-we-demonstrate-that-dean)

91 notes

8.07: How many ways can we demonstrate that Dean was pining for Cas?

Honestly that’s really the only thing I think we really need to discuss from this episode in relation to s12.

Dean finally confesses a little bit of what he’s been feeling about Cas having stayed behind in purgatory, that he’s been seeing Cas everywhere, and it’s been making him feel like crap…

Sam suggests it’s survivor’s guilt, and advises Dean to “walk past it.” Proving that Sam really has no fucking clue about just how hurt Dean was, how much Cas staying behind has messed with him.

Paralleling what Dean was feeling over Cas to Sam’s relationship with Amelia (during which he never even began to tell her the truth about his life and talked about Dean only on a surface-level and trying to pretend that he was just a normal guy with normal problems…), is like trying to compare a puddle to the ocean. Yet that’s what Sam is trying to do. There is just no  _walking past it_  for Dean when it comes to Cas.

**BENNY** : It’s here. They promised.  
 **DEAN** : Oh, they? Well, that’s comforting.  
 **CASTIEL** : Well, even if it does exist…  
 **BENNY** : Broken record, Cas.  
 **CASTIEL** : Dean, it’s a human portal. There’s still no proof that an angel can pass –  
 **DEAN** : Stow it, Cas. You’re coming. That’s final.  
 **CASTIEL** : I’m just saying… [He puts a hand on DEAN’s shoulder. DEAN stops and looks at him.] …if it doesn’t work… thank you for everything.  
 **DEAN** : Save the Hallmark. Okay? It’s gonna work. Nobody gets left behind.

First off: WHO PROMISED? I’ve read the theory that it was Angels who’d told Benny of the portal, who sent him to watch over Dean and help him escape.

AND THEN CAS DOES THE “THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING” that’s just a veiled and heartbreaking goodbye. Followed immediately by Dean delivering an early version of his “Nobody gets left behind.”

Then in 12.12, what are you? I AM YOU BUT STRONGER:

**Castiel:**  No, you listen to me. You – Look, thank you. Thank you. Knowing you, it… it’s been the best part of my life. And the things that… the things we’ve shared together, they have changed me. You’re my family. I love you. I love all of you. Just please… please, don’t make my last moments be spent watching you die. Just run. Save yourselves. And I will hold Ramiel off as long as I can.

and:

**DEAN** : And like you said, you’re family. And we don’t leave family behind. 

*stops to cry about all of this*

(oh, and regarding Cas and his sudden outburst of faith in 12.19…

**CASTIEL** Maybe you were lied to. Maybe there is no seam.  
 **BENNY** I lie. I don’t get lied to. Aren’t you guys all about faith?  
 **CASTIEL** Not particularly.)

But we also have Dean’s instincts back in 8.07, when WE know that Cas was being controlled and manipulated without his knowledge, but Dean was in a very different place back then compared to where he is in 12.19 and 12.20, both in trusting HIMSELF, as well as trusting in Cas:

**DEAN** : You do see something severely wrong here, right? Sammy, I remember every second of leaving that place. I mean, I remember the – the heat, the stink, the pain, the fear. I have that whole ugly mess… [he taps his head] …right here, and he says he has no idea how he got out? I – I’m just not buying it.  
 **SAM** : So what, you think he’s lying?  
 **DEAN** : I’m saying something else happened. I saw the shape that he was in. I mean, there was no way he was fighting his ass out alone. No way.  
SAM: All right. So, who… or what got him out?  
 **DEAN** : Exactly.

It’s not that he doesn’t trust Cas, he’s just wary that something bigger might be going on, and it’s making it hard for him to just accept that Cas is back without some long strings attached… Because he’s also still hurt over the way Cas had left him behind, or in his mind, how Cas had rejected him in Purgatory.

**DEAN** : Exactly. What? What the hell happened? Back there. Purgatory. I told you I would get you out. We were there! It was like you just gave up. It’s like you didn’t believe we could do it. I mean, you kept saying that you didn’t think it would work. Did you not trust me?  
 **CASTIEL** : Dean…  
 **DEAN** : I did everything I could to get you out – everything! I did not leave you.  
 **CASTIEL** : So you think this was your fault?

and:

**CASTIEL** : Hey, everything isn’t your responsibility. Getting me out of Purgatory wasn’t your responsibility.  
 **DEAN** : You didn’t get out. So whose fault was it?  
 **CASTIEL** : It’s not about fault. It’s about will. Dean, do you really not remember?  
 **DEAN** : [laughs shortly] I lived it, Cas. Okay, I know what happened.  
 **CASTIEL** : No. No, you think you know. You remembered it the way you needed to.  
 **DEAN** : Look, I don’t need to feel like hell for failing you, okay? For failing you like I’ve failed every other godforsaken thing that I care about! I don’t need it!

So Cas shows Dean the truth of how he CHOSE to stay behind in Purgatory, but Cas still doesn’t understand why Dean would need to have created a false memory of those events, of why it would’ve hurt Dean so much to remember it accurately.

But key themes at work here that are vital to s12: Faith vs Free will. Effectively communicating their needs and beliefs to each other, being honest with each other and finding the RIGHT words to make each other understand.

**CASTIEL** : See, it wasn’t that I was weak. I was stronger than you. I pulled away. Nothing you could have done would have saved me, because I didn’t want to be saved.  
 **DEAN** : What the hell are you talking about?  
 **CASTIEL** : It’s where I belonged. I needed to do penance. After the things I did on earth and in heaven, I didn’t deserve to be out. And I saw that clearly when I was there. I… I planned to stay all along. I just didn’t know how to tell you. You can’t save everyone, my friend… though, you try.

*seriously just launch me into the damn sun it would hurt less*

Despite how far Cas has come in the last four years, of finally feeling like he belongs with the Winchesters, he’s still unable to feel he truly deserves to be there until he can do just one thing right. Until he can redeem himself (like he’s been telling Dean he would since 7.01).

SOMEONE PLEASE FORCE DEAN TO TELL CAS THAT HE HAS REDEEMED HIMSELF OVER AND OVER AGAIN AND THEY DON’T NEED HIM TO CLEAN UP THEIR MESSES OR PROTECT THEM FROM THE REALITY OF THEIR LIVES, THAT HE JUST NEEDS CAS TO BE THERE WITH HIM. OKAY?! OKAY.

 

[spn 8.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.07) [s12 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-meta-rewatch) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn 12.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.20)[using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [DO Y'ALL SEE HOW FAR WE'VE COME OH MY GOD HOW DID WE EVER THINK S8 WAS EVEN CLOSE TO THE FINISH LINE?!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/DO-Y%27ALL-SEE-HOW-FAR-WE%27VE-COME-OH-MY-GOD-HOW-DID-WE-EVER-THINK-S8-WAS-EVEN-CLOSE-TO-THE-FINISH-LINE%3F%21) [they had so damn many issues to work out between them back then and they've spent the last few years REALLY WORKING ON IT](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/they-had-so-damn-many-issues-to-work-out-between-them-back-then-and-they%27ve-spent-the-last-few-years-REALLY-WORKING-ON-IT) [the spec that it was gonna go canon in s8 just looks ridiculous from the perspective of s12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-spec-that-it-was-gonna-go-canon-in-s8-just-looks-ridiculous-from-the-perspective-of-s12) [because WE CAN SEE THEY'RE STILL NOT QUITE THERE YET BUT THEY'RE GETTING SO MUCH CLOSER YOU CAN PRACTICALLY TASTE IT](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-WE-CAN-SEE-THEY%27RE-STILL-NOT-QUITE-THERE-YET-BUT-THEY%27RE-GETTING-SO-MUCH-CLOSER-YOU-CAN-PRACTICALLY-TASTE-IT)


	99. Chapter 99

[May 11, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160553336885/817-pls-send-help-this-episode-is-gonna-kill-me)

51 notes

8.17: pls send help this episode is gonna kill me today

*watches opening scene*

no really i am not prepared send hepl

Dean finds a series of Chekhov’s guns– the Spear of Destiny, a little golden egg, the Inner Key of Oz, and then antique porn… (I assume only two of those guns have fired…)

Sam is still hiding his trial damage from Dean, but Dean knows about him coughing up blood, and knows Sam’s keeping the truth from him. He still doesn’t push, but he’s becoming wary. Because Sam’s not talking to him, Dean just goes into overprotective mode because in his mind, Sam’s lying to him because he’s beginning to realize (as he said in the last episode) that he might not survive the trials. And Dean knows what it’s like to get a little reckless with his own life when he loses hope (hello s3), so if Sam’s not gonna care about his own life, Dean just doubles down on caring…

On their case, they discover that someone’s been killing demons. Dean suggests they send whoever it is flowers (awww, yeah. you should send Cas flowers anyway.)

Cas shows up just in time to save Sam from a demon, and Sam demands answers on where he’s been while Dean sits there looking stunned to see him. Cas tells Dean he’s only been trying to help…

Naomi forces Cas to lie about his mission, insisting that the Winchesters can’t be trusted. So because Naomi believes they can’t be trusted, so does Cas.

Honestly? I think this is just the sort of overprotective madness that the Angel Tablet inspires in angels. Part of their bedrock programming, since Crowley unlocked that knowledge of the angel tablet while poking around in Samandriel’s “operating system.” Angels are coded to protect that tablet at all costs. I’m not sure Naomi was even acting of her own free will when it came to protecting that tablet…

**DEAN** : Well, he puts the “ass” in “Cas,” huh?  
 **SAM** : He’s definitely off.  
 **DEAN** : Off? He hasn’t been right since he got back from Purgatory. We still don’t know how he got out of there.  
 **SAM** : I don’t know, Dean. If he’s so sketchy, then why were you praying to him?

WHY INDEED.

**WENDY RICE** : I thought angels were supposed to be the good cops.

(8.08: I was being bad cop. You were being bad  _everything_.)

Cas kills Wendy without hesitation on Naomi’s order before she can reveal the existence of the angel tablet, but when Meg reveals the same information, Cas negotiates for her life, telling Naomi they can use her to find the crypts.

**CASTIEL** : Well, this is news to me, as well. Demons I interrogated, they must have been lying about their true intentions.  
 **DEAN** : Really? ‘Cause I saw you “Zero Dark Thirty” that demon. You were more than persuasive.

Dean’s even more suspicious of why Cas is lying to him. But Sam puts it a little bit into perspective…

**DEAN** : He lied to us.   
 **SAM** : Yeah, maybe. I can kind of understand why. I mean, an Angel Tablet? If the Demon Tablet can shut the Gates of Hell, what can the Angel Tablet do?

Dean’s still not convinced that’s the whole story. Because he still doesn’t believe that Cas would’ve just avoided him all this time, that he wouldn’t have answered his prayers, even if he’d been on this mission all along.

**MEG** : You know, you’re much cuter when you’re shutting up. So, which Cas are you now? Original make and model or crazy town?  
 **CASTIEL** : I’m just me.  
 **MEG** : So, your noodle’s back in order?  
 **CASTIEL** : Yeah, my… noodle remembers everything. I think it’s a pretty good noodle. 

DUDE YOUR NOODLE DOES NOT REMEMBER EVERYTHING. ASK YOUR NOODLE ABOUT NAOMI.

Meg laments the fact that things aren’t black and white anymore, like they were back during the apocalypse. Nothing’s all good or all bad. IT’S ALL SO MESSY NOW. Shades of grey, there are no absolutes. Such is life.

Dean orders Sam to wait outside with Meg while he and Cas go into the crypt. Sam tries to argue that he’s fine, but Dean finally calls him out on it, and admits that’s why he’d been praying to Cas in the first place. Sam tries to argue again, but Cas confirms that he’s already damaged in ways he can’t heal. Cas tells Dean it’s something happening to him on a subatomic level.

Naomi’s orders reach desperation levels, but so do Cas’s pleas

**NAOMI** : If the demons get their hands on the Angel Tablet, they’ll kill us all. They’ll destroy heaven.  
 **CASTIEL** : I can reason with Dean. He’s a good man.  
 **NAOMI** : Kill him.

Cas still fights off that order, tries to talk Dean into handing over the tablet. But Dean’s finally come to the point where he can’t ignore that creeping feeling that something’s been off about Cas since he got out of Purgatory. And he finally confronts Cas directly…

**DEAN** : Cas. Cas, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you, but if you’re in there and you can hear me, you don’t have to do this. [CASTIEL attacks, DEAN blocks the blow with the stone.] Cas! 

The cold and robotic Castiel following Naomi’s orders to attack Dean IS NOT CAS. Dean KNOWS THIS. He’s trying to reach the part of Cas he knows is still in there, the part that’s up in Naomi’s office slamming his hand on the desk and shouting I WON’T HURT DEAN! The part that’s desperately trying to resist following her order to kill him while his body’s back on Earth doing just that…

Meanwhile, demons show up outside, and Meg and Sam fight them off. Meg confronts Crowley while Sam runs inside to warn Dean and Cas. But the two halves of Cas– the one in Naomi’s office that’s the “real Cas” and the “sock puppet” attacking Dean are beginning to merge together.

**DEAN** : Cas, fight this! This is not you! Fight it!   
 **CASTIEL** : What have you done to me?!   
 **NAOMI** : Just relax, Castiel. Let your vessel do what you know deep down is the right thing.  
 **CASTIEL** ” What have you done to me, Naomi?  
 **DEAN** : Who’s Naomi?!

Cas backs away from Naomi, horrified by what she’s telling him and what she’s making him do to Dean. The tablet shatters open, but Naomi keeps pushing… Cas is fighting it though.

**Dean:**  This isn’t you. Cas, I know you’re in there. I know you can hear me. Cas, it’s me. We’re family. We need you; I need you.

Naomi’s ultimatum, US OR THEM, helps Cas choose. As always, he chooses Dean.

Even when he breaks Naomi’s hold over him, Cas still isn’t free to stay. He looks at Dean like he’s confused and pained, but the tablet has chosen him as its protector and champion. (Of course Dean’s going to take it as a personal betrayal, as a sign that Cas doesn’t trust him, because of course he will…)

But Naomi knows the truth of the situation:

**NAOMI** : Castiel isn’t in the wind. He’s doing exactly what he’s supposed to do – protect the tablet.

But Dean uses his hurt here to at least get a little bit of truth in his life:

**SAM** : So… what happened? I mean, Cas touched the tablet, and it reset him to his factory settings or something?  
 **DEAN** : I don’t know. And I don’t care. All I know is that he is off the reservation with a-a heavenly WMD. Listen, man, I can’t take any more lies – from anyone.  
 **SAM** : Yeah. Um… I know. I’m sorry. I should have told you. I-I… just wanted to believe I was okay. I don’t know.  
 **DEAN** : Well, you heard what Cas said – that that first trial hurt you in ways that even he can’t heal. Sammy, I need you to be honest with me from here on out, man.  
 **SAM** : You’re right. And I will be.  
 **DEAN** : Listen, I may not be able to carry the burden that comes along with these trials… But I can carry you.

And there goes Cas, all alone with the tablet, on the run from everything and everyone. Because that’s what the tablet wanted.

After 12.19? I think that’s EXACTLY the situation Cas is in regarding the nephilim. Take all of 8.17 and substitute “nephilim” for “angel tablet,” and forget about the Naomi-controlling-Cas bits and make the physical hurts to Dean into metaphorical emotional hurt, and you have 12.19.

 

[spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [s12 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-meta-rewatch) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [the crypt scene](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-crypt-scene) [the reverse reverse crypt scene](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-reverse-reverse-crypt-scene) [face your past head-on and find another way a better way](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/face-your-past-head-on-and-find-another-way-a-better-way) [lies and damn lies](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lies-and-damn-lies) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19)


	100. Chapter 100

[May 21, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160926501665/i-just-want-them-to-finally-get-cas-back-and-hes)

27 notes

**Anonymous asked: I just want them to FINALLY get Cas back, and he's human now cuz that's what getting stabbed did to him. And he's unconscious on a bed in the bunker and Dean is waiting for him to wake up, and when he finally opens an eye, Dean will lean forward, take his hand, and smile and say "hey there, Sunshine"**

AAAAHHHHH!

I have a feeling that’s not gonna happen until later in the season/series, but oh gosh wouldn’t that be a relief.

In 13.01 I’m already imagining that Cas is revived with Jack’s power floating through him and he sits up and Dean’s all shocked/relieved/verklempt, but of course Cas is enthralled/beholden to Jack now, and he poofs off (because Jack’s power is that powerful he can poof off again), and then Dean’s left there blinking at nothing just as the sun rises over the lake…

So that when they DO find/reach/break through to Cas and he throws off that thrall, THEN the sunshine thing will be appropriate :P

Why not cram in some extra painful sun analogies along the way?

Oh, and pining. We can do with some more pining too.

 

[*flings self into the sunshine*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Aflings-self-into-the-sunshine%2A) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [they've come too far in the story to just bring it to a sudden end now](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/they%27ve-come-too-far-in-the-story-to-just-bring-it-to-a-sudden-end-now) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	101. Chapter 101

[May 21, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160927704955/2-part-anon-ugh-why-ok-let-me-see-if-i-can)

34 notes

**Anonymous asked: (2 part anon) UGH why. Ok, let me see if i can remember everything from the first part. I think it was basically just that they focused a lot on Dean's reactions, and that while Sam was obviously very clearly upset, Dean was *devastated.* He doesn't run off with Sam to attend to more urgent and immediate matters. He can't. Those were basically the highlights of the first part i think, just pointing out the very obvious difference in their reactions and how it was clearly intentional.**

2/2 In all honesty, this has got to be the most blatant “Dean’s bond with Cas is different” moment ever. It’s a standard tragic romantic trope. Sam’s not the one who fell on his knees next to Cas’s body. They chose Dean for that. I wonder why?:P And Dean didn’t even have to say anything, it was all body language and expressions. That’s not even subtext, it’s right there on the screen the two brothers different reactions to Cas.  
  


HI! And thanks for sending part 1 again! Sorry it took so long for me to answer, but yeah, I absolutely agree with you. I’ve seen (reblogged? Probably?) several gif sets over the last few days comparing these things, and also comparing Dean falling to his knees with Cain falling to his knees at Colette’s grave in 9.11, as well as Sam pulling Dean through the portal the same way Dean pulled Sam out of his burning house where Jess had just died in 1.01.

So not only are we seeing Dean’s AND Sam’s reactions here as very different, we’re seeing Dean’s behavior basically identical to other explicitly romantic relationships on the show.

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	102. Chapter 102

[May 21, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160934479110/hi-ive-been-confused-about-somethingit-just)

160 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi! I've been confused about something...It just seems like Dean's usually pretty eager to touch Cas, esp. when he's worried( like in 12x08 when Cas drops the coffee cups and Dean runs over and places both hands on him)but when Cas was dying in 12x12 he didn't touch him at all(Sam and Mary did though)and when Cas died in the finale he didn't touch him either. I mean the kneeling over him was great and everything, but...why no touching? I'm not trying to be negative, I'm just puzzled...**

Fear.

Denial.

In 12.08, Cas wasn’t dying. He was obviously in visible distress/pain, and that’s something Dean can help with. He can steady, reassure, support.

Even in a situation like 11.03 after Cas recovered from having the attack dog spell lifted, Dean was relieved that everything was going to be okay. Cas was going to be fine, just like always. So he can touch.

That’s safe. Touching Cas there isn’t gonna be the thing that confirms his absolute worst fear.

Like it would’ve been in 12.12. Cas lifted his shirt to show Dean the extent of his injury, the spreading rot from the wound, and Dean carefully covered it back up:

**DEAN** : All right. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, hey, you know what? I’ve had worse.   
 **CASTIEL** : Oh, yeah? When? Dean, something’s wrong. I… I can’t heal myself. I think the… I think the demon’s s-spear was poisoned. I don’t… I-I think I’m dying.   
 **DEAN** : No. No, you just need some time, okay? You’ll heal up the old fashioned way. 

Because if he didn’t look, if he didn’t touch, he could maintain that belief a little bit longer.

And after he is healed there, Dean grabs his hand and pulls him to his feet while running his other hand all over Cas’s back. It was safe again, Cas was fine again.

Even in 11.23 when Dean ran over to check on Cas after Amara ripped Lucifer out of him, he didn’t really touch Cas until Cas assured him that Lucifer was gone and he was going to be okay, and then he couldn’t keep his hands off of him, even walking back over to check on Sam and Chuck.

It’s about making the situation REAL. And undeniable. And if he doesn’t touch, maybe he’s mistaken, you know? I have a feeling that’s not gonna be a situation that lasts long in 13.01, but in 12.23? Yeah. He’s not ready to make that real. He’s got one last hope that Chuck will hear him screaming internally and bring Cas back like he always does…

And then we’ll see what happens next. 

[spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 12.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.08) [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [spn 11.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.03) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	103. Chapter 103

[May 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161170135165/elizabethrobertajones-i-woke-up-with-the)

601 notes

[elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/161157522233/i-woke-up-with-the-startling-revelation-to-self):

> I woke up with the startling revelation-to-self that after all that hassle about “hurr blurr drinking vegetable water doesn’t make you gay” that I have absolute 100% clarity that I can say, “shooting a grenade launcher absolutely definitely makes you gay and I’m not the one making the rules” and that is why I have been sobbing while typing “RIP Dean Winchester” on any and all posts about him finally getting to shoot the thing off

I’ve been staring at this for an hour, because dammit it’s true.

Dean spent the entire season wanting to fire that thing. He’d wanted to haul it out to blow up nazis in 12.05, but Sam reminded him they needed stealth not kabooms, even if they did kinda-sorta regret it for a hot minute when they were captured.

When he’d lost most of his memories in 12.11 Sam’s note reminded him that the grenade launcher was probably not the right tool to use against a couple of witches, knowing that even without his memories, Dean would probably default to wanting to pick up that grenade launcher even if it wasn’t the right tool for this particular job. None of that stopped him from being a little disappointed that again something stopped him from being able to blow stuff up.

In 12.20 he had no real reason to haul it out for the case, but it became the centerpiece of the conversation he had, bonding with a canonically gay character over how “major” the Impala is, and Dean offering to give Max a tour of the trunk… I mean… that’s the phrase Dean used… “you want the tour?” and then they go straight (pffft straight) for the grenade launcher in the trunk…

In 12.22, Sam, Dean, and Toni are essentially entombed in the bunker as the air slowly runs out. They’re buried underground in a twisted version of their own legacy, their only salvation on the outside of this concrete box in the ground. The spell they attempt to break through the warding holding them prisoner in this tomb requires them to “purify” themselves in another “virginity” rite, but even in that “pure” state it’s not enough to counter the trappings holding them captive. They need DRASTIC MEASURES to blow up the walls holding them back now as they’re literally suffocating to death.

Dean stands alone in that room, Toni and Sam having left to protect themselves from the blast. He alone fires the rocket at that concrete wall he and Sam had been ineffectively chipping away at. Of course there are consequences to blasting the wall away. The explosion itself burned through most of the rest of the oxygen in the bunker, and Dean himself suffered some injuries either from the initial blast or his escape to freedom up that hidden stairwell that collapsed behind him.

_But he did escape._

And pulled the override switch to restore life to the bunker, saving Sam (and Toni) in the process.

The grenade launcher set him free, but it was painful. And yet… as soon as he finds Cas again, Cas instantly heals those wounds. Cas made him whole again.

So you can pry this metaphor from my cold, dead hands. I will defend this castle to the end.

RIP Dean Winchester

 

 

[dean winchester is bilingual](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-winchester-is-bilingual) [grenadebaiting: the ongoing saga](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/grenadebaiting%3A-the-ongoing-saga) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [RIP Dean Winchester my smol son is free](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/RIP-Dean-Winchester-my-smol-son-is-free)


	104. Chapter 104

[May 29, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161212047355/12-ie-dean-seeing-cas-getting-hit-on-by-a)

20 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 (i.e. Dean seeing Cas getting hit on by a dude) Yeah, i can definitely see Dean being more protective than jealous in those situations at first; I don't think "cas prefers other men over me" would even be in his realm of thinking. I think he'd be worried about Cas not picking up on the signs and getting in over his head, or someone taking advantage of Cas, things like that, etc. Because i think he and Cas being on the same level in that aspect is another barrier.**

2/2 Because in Dean’s mind it might be a little of “Is it ethical/right to hit on someone or go into a relationship with someone who is so socially stunted when it comes to that kind of thing? Someone who wouldn’t understand what’s going on or what you’re doing?” I think it’d be good for Dean to see that Cas has developed a LOT and there’s nothing to feel guilty about. Some of that will come much later when Cas becomes human for good and is on the same level as Dean.  
  


Hi there! And yeah, I think you make some excellent points here ^^

Because Cas might be this billions-of-years-old being who knows more about the entire history of the universe than the entirety of human beings on the planet combined… but he’s always shown a sort of naivete  _about humanity_. Or at least that’s what Dean feels he’s OBSERVED about Cas and his interactions with humanity…

Going all the way back to the Apocalypse era, Cas was always confiding his uncertainty and doubts to Dean. He expressed to Dean in 4.07 that he was unsure if he was doing the right thing, that he didn’t know the entire plan for either him OR Dean, and what part they may yet play. And his expression of doubt to Dean over the next few seasons only increased. Dean’s watched him struggle with emotions and feelings that are practically alien to an angel, but are par for the course for a human– his disillusionment about God as an absentee father, the original loss of grace in s5 that left him practically human, his multiple deaths and resurrections, the loss and restoration of his grace.

It’s been incredibly difficult and traumatic for Cas, but Dean’s witnessed all of these transformations in his friend. He’s watched Cas struggle with his humanity in s9, learning to navigate human interpersonal relationships (and failing rather spectacularly due to a sort of naivete about how to BE human himself). The whole, “without your powers you’re just a baby in a trenchcoat” thing but blown up to be the sum total of how Dean felt he could relate to Cas at all.

Part of that breakdown of understanding was forced on them by Gadreel’s manipulation of Sam, and demanding that Dean send Cas away– using Sam’s life as the bargaining chip in that negotiation. Dean spent the early part of s9 drowning in guilt both over what he did to Sam, what Gadreel ended up doing to Sam because of him, and what he ended up doing to Cas because of that whole mess.

So yeah, I think that Dean might be shocked to learn that Cas-as-human has really come a long way in understanding since then. He just hasn’t really had the time and space to demonstrate it AS a human. But we were shown quite a bit during s12 that Cas has learned an awful lot about how to HUNT as a human, during his whole search for Lucifer. He played Agent Beyonce, made real connections with people on a personal level (he was the only one who convinced his “target” to share information with them about where Vince’s secret concert would be held, i.e. he was the only “successful” hunter).

His hunting skills sort of fell to pieces while Sam and Dean were being held prisoner, but that was more about his concern for them and his feelings of personal failure than it was about his abilities to get the job done. That woeful period for him seemed to light the fire under him in the latter half of s12 to finally prove himself worthy, to get that one big win that he talked about in 12.19. He almost had to prove to himself AND Dean that he COULD do this on his own.

But I think the point the show is trying to deliver here is that he shouldn’t HAVE to do this on his own. As Dean has been saying for a while now, they’re better as a team. He’s not just referring to Cas there, but to himself and Sam as well. They each have skills that the others don’t, and working together they compensate for each other’s weaknesses, too.

But yeah, having Cas engage in a social discourse with a man within earshot of Dean could be a wonderful way to demonstrate just how far Cas’s understanding of humanity and HIMSELF has really come. That Cas is no longer the baby in a trenchcoat, nor is he a “child” nor a “dumbass.” That he’s come a looooong way since then, and is fully capable of making his own choices, romantic or otherwise.

 

 

[spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	105. Chapter 105

[Jun 1, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161322070845/i-have-one-thing-i-have-been-waiting-for-since-s11)

200 notes

**Anonymous asked: I have one thing I have been waiting for since s11 failed to deliver and I personally feel is important for Dean's and Cas' relationship; for Dean to save Cas. The big save, the gripped tight and raised you from perdition kind of save, the break a blood pact with a reaper kind of save. And I think it's important because the whole Cas= The Protector and Dean= The Protected narrative needs to break for them to be equals. It's time for Dean to be the saviour and for Cas to be saved.**

[k-vichan](https://k-vichan.tumblr.com/post/161318117439/i-have-one-thing-i-have-been-waiting-for-since-s11):

> [tinkdw](https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/161308718132/i-have-one-thing-i-have-been-waiting-for-since-s11):
>
>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161303002750/i-have-one-thing-i-have-been-waiting-for-since-s11):
>>
>>> I can’t argue with this at all. I mean, when Cas was possessed by Lucifer, this was a BIG disappointment, that Dean wasn’t directly involved in freeing Cas. He gave it a desperate try in 11.18, but there were the extenuating circumstances of Cas’s depression that seemed to only get worse while he was hosting Lucifer.
>>> 
>>> I’d be depressed if I had to host Lucifer too, and I’m just thinking of the “stuck him in the spare room” sort of hosting here…
>>> 
>>> Dean did break Naomi’s hold over him in 8.17, but then Cas had to go and pick up the angel tablet and suddenly all he knew was that he had to protect that tablet with his life from everyone, including Dean.
>>> 
>>> (which sounds VERY MUCH like how he currently feels/is behaving toward Jack and Kelly after 12.19 and all the way through 12.23).
>>> 
>>> They nudged up to that line in 12.12, but there wasn’t anything Dean could’ve done to save Cas once he’d already been injured by the Lance, since he didn’t know that snapping the lance in half would work as a cure. But at least Cas got a shining example of how Dean was unwilling to leave him to save their own lives. They stood and faced Ramiel.
>>> 
>>> (granted at that point I think Mary may have been more motivated by guilt for having brought them all into that fight, but by the end of the episode she had admitted that Cas was one of her boys… so it was obvious enough to HER that this was Cas’s place in the Winchester family, where his life was to be equally defended by all of them).
>>> 
>>> But yeah, whatever becomes of Cas in 13.01 might be setting up just this kind of potential situation. We shall see.
>>> 
>>> We know he’s willing to lay his life down for the Winchesters (he said it again in 12.19:
>>> 
>>> **Castiel:**  This has nothing to do with my reputation. I am doing this for the Winchesters. I-I stole the Colt to keep them out of this mission and to keep them safe from Dagon, and I… I will kill this girl so that Sam and Dean don’t have to.)
>>> 
>>> Problem is, they’d rather have him, and fight with him at their side, than have him act as their protector.
>>> 
>>> Dean pulling a big save might help him finally see that.
>>> 
>>> I only hope it doesn’t involve any sort of deal. Deals ALWAYS go bad on Supernatural.
>> 
>> Yeah I have all kinds of feelings about this, hence why I feel like the deal comment was potentially some form of foreshadowing as the demon deals in the show between two characters have been for love, familial and romantic, but I also hope not as it wouldn’t make sense for Dean’s growth to just transfer the codependent self sacrificing from Sam to Cas at this point.
>> 
>> Maybe we see him seriously think about a deal but not go through with it or perhaps he can’t as there’s so few people to ask now and Hell is in turmoil, be desperately searching for a way, maybe we eventually get the proper crypt scene or Dean bodily pushes Cas out of the way at some point to show Cas (and the GA) how strongly he feels, I think there’s lots of options and tbh I was feeling we might get one in 12x23 but it wasn’t to be, the episode was too busy as it was.
>> 
>> It would be amazing if Cas came back thanks to Dean in some way but realistically it’ll be about Jack. Maybe Dean tries to bargain with or convinces Jack to bring him back… that would be the ultimate good choice for me, adding to Dean, Jack, Sam and Cas’s arcs through all their choices and interactions with Jack so far, but it totally depends how they take the story time wise and how long they’ll drag out the pain and pining/mourning…
>> 
>> So many feelings about this!
> 
> Speaking as someone who has lived and breathed codependency, it  _would_  make sense for Dean to transfer his codependent tendencies from Sam to Cas, as that would be extremely  _realistic_. It takes years for someone with codependent tendencies to work those issues out. It’s not a snap of the fingers. It’s not a sudden realization of “oh, maybe I shouldn’t do that anymore” and you magically stop doing it. It is a struggle, and it’s a struggle that you most likely will wind up dealing with for your entire life.
> 
> However, as [@tinkdw](https://tmblr.co/mfCCEp6XoX-GAEcJPdBiLxA) said, I just don’t know if it would make sense  _narratively_ … which really kinda sucks since they’ve portrayed codependency in such a scarily accurate fashion for much of the series and it would be a shame to give that up now.
> 
> On the other hand, depending on the direction they decide to take this, it could make  _complete_  narrative sense.
> 
> A huge part of the reason Cas was so lost is because Dean kept insisting he was family, but Cas was never,  _ever_  put on the same level as Sam… aka Dean’s family. He still hasn’t been. And I don’t mean to make this painful, but I don’t think Cas has even come CLOSE to that level. That’s confusing and painful to Cas, and it’s pretty apparent that Cas still views himself as a tool.
> 
> Considering Dean’s own personality… I just don’t know if pushing Cas out of the way of a giant death fireball would really show how much Cas is worth to Dean. Dean risks his life every day by hunting, so I don’t see how that would prove anything to Cas (or the general audience).
> 
> Winchesters make dumbass decisions in order to save each other. Mary did it to save John. John did it to save Dean. Dean did it to save Sam. Sam did it to save Dean.
> 
> And Cas did it to save all of them.
> 
> It kinda sucks that nobody has made that dumbass decision on behalf of Cas.

Yeah, I’m torn between hoping Dean finally learned there’s better ways than sacrificing yourself to save a loved one, and wanting the GA to have something absolutely undeniable of that magnitude to “prove” how Dean feels about Cas.

I think what they need is a hybrid solution to this problem, where Dean’s willing to make that sacrifice, making it explicitly clear what his motives for doing so are, but in the end… maybe instead of demanding that sacrifice, for once the universe just gives him a gift instead…

(It’s a gift. You keep those.)

I feel like confronting Mary the way he did in 12.22 went a long way not only to break his codependency with Sam, but to acknowledge the source and circumstances under which the codependency developed in the first place in order to get more to the root of the issue itself.

We’ll have to wait and see how the show decides to go with it, but they’ve got multiple routes they can take from here.

 

[spn 12.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.22) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [breaking the codependency](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/breaking-the-codependency) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [spn 11.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.17)[because i feel like that was one of the first moments this mindset began to break for dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-i-feel-like-that-was-one-of-the-first-moments-this-mindset-began-to-break-for-dean)

[spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [oh dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-dean)[spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [spn 11.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.18) [spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [the reverse reverse crypt scene](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-reverse-reverse-crypt-scene) [i mean that's probably what all of this is gonna come down to right?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-that%27s-probably-what-all-of-this-is-gonna-come-down-to-right%3F) [maybe we'll finally get a complete crypt scene that fulfills its original potential](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/maybe-we%27ll-finally-get-a-complete-crypt-scene-that-fulfills-its-original-potential) [because even the original in 8.17 only did half the job](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-even-the-original-in-8.17-only-did-half-the-job) [cas still flapped off afterward at the mercy of the tablet](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/cas-still-flapped-off-afterward-at-the-mercy-of-the-tablet) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous) [the crypt scene](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-crypt-scene)

 


	106. Chapter 106

[Jun 1, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161320485850/1113-okay-i-know-i-havent-been-keeping-up-with)

51 notes

11.13: Okay I know I haven’t been keeping up with the s12 meta rewatch, but I have to comment on this episode specifically. Not in how it relates to s12, but on how it turns the ENTIRE relationship between Amara and Dean on its head and PERFECTLY shows us exactly what that relationship was about.

**Melissa** : I swear. I really did love Dan. Maybe a little too much. I just…I wanted him to love me back. So I got some advice and I confided in my hairdresser about the affair.

She loved her husband obsessively, completely… but he didn’t love her in return. She sought out a spell to FORCE him to love her, but instead was given the curse of the qareen.

Like Amara, who loved Chuck obsessively, completely… but she felt he didn’t love her in return. When his affection “strayed” from her to creation itself, he locked her away (like the witch locking the qareen’s heart in a box so she could control it).

But Amara, first through the Mark of Cain and then in person after she was released from the Mark (and “became” the embodiment of the Mark), sought to do the same with Dean. She narrowed her focus to Dean because Chuck wasn’t answering her calls. He was just a proxy for her.

**Sam** : Alright (pulls out book) got it. It looks like we’re dealing with a Qareen.  
 **Dean** : Never heard of it  
 **Sam** : It’s a creature, corporeal in form. A slave to your commands.  
 **Dean** : Kinda like a genie  
 **Sam** : I guess. Here we go. Someone chants a curse, lays a wet one on you, then the victim is seduced and killed by the Qareen, but instead of taking the form of Barbara Eden, the present themselves as your deepest, darkest desire.  
 **Dean** : Makes sense why the sitter was killed by the husband. The husband by the sitter.  
 **Sam** : Yeah. And why Melissa was attacked by Dan. She really loved him.

I think the whole point is that Melissa was attacked by Dan not because she loved him, but because she wanted to “own his heart.” It was about obsession, possession, and control. Which is NOT love. In Melissa’s case it may have been borne of love, but it had been warped and twisted into this secretive, borderline revenge-driven sense of ownership over Dan’s heart. What Dan felt or wanted didn’t matter to her at all. Because if Dan didn’t want or love her back the same way she wanted him to love her, that was unacceptable to her. Only her own desires mattered to her.

Like Amara, both in how she wanted Chuck to only love her, and how she transferred that feeling to Dean. Through the Mark of Cain that attempted to change Dean from the inside, controlling his actions and taking over him (via all the heart metaphors… the love and love). And then finally Dean’s reaction to Amara’s physical presence, the control she had over him when he was in her presence.

Amara wanted Dean’s heart, not because Dean wanted HER. Her own heart had been “stolen” by Chuck, so like the qareen (or the witch controlling the qareen, or both at the same time), she tried to fill that void with Dean. She tried to rip out his heart.

**Sonja** : Someone has to punish these men. But you know the only thing worse than a cheating man, is one who gets away with it.

That pretty much sums up Amara’s revenge mission on Chuck… she didn’t want to let him get away with “cheating on her” via the rest of creation.

**Amara** : You’re a mystery. I can see inside your heart. Feel the love you feel. Except it’s cloaked in shame. When it comes to this, you can’t help yourself, so why fight it. Just give in.  
 **Dean** : Yeah. You know what? You’re right. The real Amara does have a hold on me, but you? Are nothing but a cheap imitation.

The “real Amara” has a hold on him, because she forced it on him. Not because he feels it in himself. If he truly felt it in himself, all that love Dean felt would’ve left him just as vulnerable in the face of Qareen Amara as the real thing. Dean IS full of love and longing, just… NOT FOR AMARA.

What the quareen tapped into was the thing it understood. Not true love. Not selfless devotion. But that part of Dean that Amara taps into. The part that is helpless to resist Amara when he’s in her presence, because she’s tried to claim his heart for herself.

**Dean** : Honestly? You seriously think the sister of God is my deepest darkest desire?  
 **Sam** : She isn’t?  
 **Dean** : No! She can’t be!  
 **Sam** : Why not?  
 **Dean** : Why? Because if she is that means that I’m…  
 **Sam** : Means you’re what? Complicit? Weak? Evil?  
 **Dean** : For starters, yeah  
 **Sam** : Dean. Do you honestly think you ever had a choice in the matter? She’s the sister of God, and for some reason she picked you and that sucks, but if you think I’m gonna blame you or judge you…I’m not.  
 **Dean** : You know that I want her ass dead  
 **Sam** : Yes. Of course. And I know you’ve also probably beaten yourself up a hundred times over it, but where has that gotten us? (Long silence) Just how bad is it?  
 **Dean** : Standing here right now, every bone in my body wants to run her through. Send her back to that hole she crawled out of. But when I’m near her, I don’t know. Something happens and I can’t explain it, but to call it desire or love…it’s not that. I’m screwed man. We wanna kill the darkness. We need to kill the darkness. And I don’t think I can. I’m sorry to do that to you, ya know, but when it comes right down to it…

What Amara wants from Dean is what Melissa wanted from Dan. Not the literal tearing out of his heart like the qareen curse, but the “return to love” spell she thought she was using… She didn’t care if Dan’s love for her was “fake,” or that he was being forced to feel love for her, and not his own real love for her. Even if Dan really did love Stacy the babysitter instead, Melissa was willing to settle for hijacking that love and forcing Dan to redirect it at her.

And that’s exactly what Amara was doing to Dean. Taking his own love for others and warping it and trying to force him to feel it toward her instead.

The whole of s11 was about love, wasn’t it…

I feel like I’ve made this post before…

Who cares it bears repeating.

 

[spn 11.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.13) [who is amara?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/who-is-amara%3F) [here have my belated thoughts on the whole love... and love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/here-have-my-belated-thoughts-on-the-whole-love...-and-love)[because why not maybe the lock and key are a function of hands and hearts](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-why-not-maybe-the-lock-and-key-are-a-function-of-hands-and-hearts) [s12 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-meta-rewatch)[i always feel like people miss the entire point of this episode and it wrongly gets maligned](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-always-feel-like-people-miss-the-entire-point-of-this-episode-and-it-wrongly-gets-maligned) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [because this was a MAJOR turning point for Dean in acknowledging the truth about Amara's effect over him](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-this-was-a-MAJOR-turning-point-for-Dean-in-acknowledging-the-truth-about-Amara%27s-effect-over-him) [and heck now I'm watching 11.14 and having such INTENSE feelings about the fact Dean learned about casifer](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-heck-now-I%27m-watching-11.14-and-having-such-INTENSE-feelings-about-the-fact-Dean-learned-about-casifer) [ONE EPISODE AFTER acknowledging what amara was doing to him... and then his entire reason for being becomes saving cas](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/ONE-EPISODE-AFTER-acknowledging-what-amara-was-doing-to-him...-and-then-his-entire-reason-for-being-becomes-saving-cas) [hmmm i wonder if that's a significant series of events >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/hmmm-i-wonder-if-that%27s-a-significant-series-of-events-%3E.%3E)


	107. Chapter 107

[Jun 1, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161324131060/i-was-the-dean-needs-to-do-the-big-save-anon)

20 notes

**Anonymous asked: I was the "Dean needs to do the big save!" anon and I love that so many added to it! Think k-vichan said it best that for Cas to be on the same level as the rest of the Winchesters in the narrative they established someone (Dean) needs to make a deal for him, or make a stupid decision to save him. I think it would not only show Cas that yes, he is fully a part of the family BUT also show him how painful it is to be on the other side which would hopefully make HIM stop doing the same.**

Aw, hi! And thanks for sending the question in. Seems like loads of folks who’ve added to it also appreciated it too :D

Yeah, the ultimate goal is for everyone (and especially Dean and Cas) to see exactly how Cas is loved, wanted, and needed as part of the Winchester family, with equal status in Dean’s heart to Sam… even if it’s in a different way.

I don’t think anyone is going to argue that Dean doesn’t love Sam and Mary with equal force, but in VERY DIFFERENT WAYS. Well, we also know that Dean loves Cas with equal force, but in a VERY DIFFERENT WAY.

Cas needs to see that in a way he can understand. Dean needs to show it in a way the GA can understand.

So, yeah. :)

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [i still stand by the meaning behind that tag there 100%](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-still-stand-by-the-meaning-behind-that-tag-there-100%25) [and this ^^ is the next story that needs telling](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-this-%5E%5E-is-the-next-story-that-needs-telling) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	108. Chapter 108

[Jun 3, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161407961575/12-this-might-be-a-stretch-but-this-whole-thing)

29 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 This might be a stretch, but this whole thing with Cas dying and then maybe coming back different reminds me of the demon dean storyline? And how Dean said "the people that love me had to pull me back?" And if Dean and Sam have to leave quickly in s13 premiere and don't know Cas has come back to life until a little later, and later find out he's come back a little "wrong" that would parallel it even more? Idk, i just saw a couple ways it reminded me of S10 a bit.**

2/2 Also, as much as i hate to say it, the series is drawing to a close at this point; we have like 2 seasons left tops to wrap up YEARS. So i feel like if there’s going to be a lead up to Dean realizing and accepting how he feels about Cas, this might be it? Otherwise, idk why they’d do this again. Like, i feel like at this point in the series everything is going to have a narrative, “move everything along” purpose. Like i just hope this is the Cas resurrection they can’t take for granted?  
  


Hi there! And yeah, I’ve been likening what Cas is going through to the MoC’s influence on Dean. It feels like they’re doing something on a less cosmically vast scale (but still a Cosmic Consequence™ as it were, without involving half of the universe itself locked away like the darkness was), and in a far more concise fashion time-wise.

A parallel can be drawn:

Dean took on the MoC in 9.11 and it took him until 9.21 to defeat Abaddon with it. Cas was first touched by Jack’s power in 12.19 and only moments later defeated Dagon with it.

Dean dealt with the MoC for the entire rest of s9, finally being stabbed through the heart with an angel blade by Metatron in 9.23 and rising as a demon. Cas had to deal with Jack’s power (which he was shown to use himself while healing Dean in 12.23) for a few episodes before being stabbed through the heart with an angel blade by Lucifer in 12.23. If things follow a similar pattern, he should rise as ~something transformed~ in 13.01.

Dean was “cured” of being a demon in 10.03, yet the power of the Mark lingered. He spent ALL of s10 dealing with it (hello plot accordion >.>) and the Darkness was finally released in 10.23 “curing” the Mark, but escalating the problem to a universal scale. This is where I think whatever “cure” is eventually applied to Cas (likely by mid s13, in my guess), won’t up the cosmic stakes. I’m guessing the cosmic stakes are already going to be in play for s13 by then– both via Jack and whatever he gets up to in s13 as well as on the Lucifer and Mary side of the rift.

I mean, this is all entirely a guess, but so far the pattern seems quite similar, yeah. The MAIN difference is that unlike back in s10 when Dean was going through the Mark/Demon stuff, Cas was having his own internal issues with his fading grace. This time, as Cas goes through this, Dean is entirely himself. Not only that, he’s finally reached a place in his own life where he is beginning to acknowledge a lot of his personal issues and put them to rest. The whole thing with Mary in 12.22 showed that he may finally be in a place where he can let go of some of that baggage.

HE SAID HE LOVED MARY. HE HASN’T SAID THAT TO ANYONE SINCE HE WAS FOUR YEARS OLD. (and in 5.16 when he was reenacting a conversation he’d had when he was four years old, with Mary in Heaven). That’s not a small thing.

 

[spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	109. Chapter 109

[Jun 5, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161486255795/i-like-how-dabb-is-fixing-up-sam-and-deans-lives)

29 notes

**[rionaofblue](http://rionaofblue.tumblr.com/) asked: I like how Dabb is fixing up Sam and Dean's lives not by putting good things into it, but by dealing with the things that made their lives feel bad in the first place (John's parenting, Mary's deal, Fate's hold over them). I don't think any show has done this before. Sam and Dean are being liberated from their past and given the chance to "rewrite" history. I wonder how their story will end. Will it really end with the brothers hunting as if that's the only thing that can never change?**

Yeah, this is excellent, because until they really got to the bottom of all those bad things the rest of their lives were built on, anything good would’ve just been a band-aid over the problems underneath.

So yes, I AM THRILLED that they are getting to rewrite their histories now and really be able to make their own choices about their futures.

As to how the series will end? I think they would chose something at least supernaturally-adjacent. I don’t know if Sam would continue hunting, but I think he would be content choosing something along the lines of a new MoL/Bobby role, especially since that was his motivation for working with the BMoL in s11. He really wants to have access to those sorts of resources, and to make them available to other hunters. He IS an excellent leader, but I think he’d be more into the academic/support side rather than running his own hunts.

Dean I think would need to be dragged off the road to get him to stop hunting at this point. He really does enjoy it. I don’t think he wants to change that. But having someone in the life by his side… I think he’d really enjoy that too…

I think the whole point is that Sam and Dean don’t have to live one conjoined life together anymore, and that they ARE each free to make these sorts of choices for themselves. Not that they’d really choose anything very different than they already have.

 

[spn speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-speculation) [sam sympathizes and dean empathizes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-sympathizes-and-dean-empathizes) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[breaking the codependency](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/breaking-the-codependency) [kajuned](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/kajuned)


	110. Chapter 110

[Jun 15, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161860405170/i-mean-this-warmly-and-sincerely-not-as-a)

27 notes

**Anonymous asked: I mean this warmly and sincerely, not as a critique. What do you think it is about Cas (beyond the physical) that Dean fell in love with since it feels like we are shown more reasons why Cas loves Dean?**

I just spent an hour looking for a really old quote and stumbled across this ask from a few months back, that was wondering the exact opposite– that it’s obvious that Dean loves and is attracted to Cas, but where is the proof that Cas feels this way about Dean…

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157179546840/we-know-dean-is-sexually-attracted-to-cas-cue> (pasted below)

I think it just depends where in canon you’re looking. The first half of s12 was the married!destiel overload, but then Cas left to protect Dean during his hunt for Kelly, and everything he did for the last half of s12 was framed as a sacrifice  _for Dean_. So right now, the text is heavily weighted toward showing us Cas’s love for Dean.

But hoowee! Back in s11, the entire second half of the season (about love and love, i mean just see my tags on the subject to be drowned in all the piney bullshit. ENTIRE PINEY FORESTS worth of pining for Cas. Like, the entire state of Maine worth of pining.

*for reference purposes, Maine is the Pine Tree State*

Heck, go watch 9.06. Heck, watch most of s9. PINING ALL OVER THE DANG PLACE.

The narrative just hasn’t really let them both be on the same page at the same time. Yet.

*and I still never found that old quote I’d been looking for, which was– i believe– from one of the older dvd commentaries but I don’t remember which season or episode to look for it and I’m covered in dirt from rabbit-warrening through my blog for the last hour– which was about what Dean Winchester would find attractive in a person, and it basically loosely described Cas’s entrance in 4.01…*

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/)

[Mittens of Sorcery](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/)

Mostly Supernatural... I also write big people books, tend to yell a lot, and have a list of laws I'm willing to violate for a decent pie. Wooing Scheherazade like a boss. Yes, I am MittenWraith on AO3.

[ABOUT](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/About) [AO3](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/AO3) [A PROBABLY OUT-OF-DATE LIST OF THINGS I'VE WRITTEN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/fic-masterlist)[BUY ME A COFFEE](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/Buy%20Me%20A%20Coffee) [ASK MESSAGE POLICY](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/askpolicy) [REDBUBBLE](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/redbubble)

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Feb 13, 2017

241 notes

**Anonymous asked: We know Dean is sexually attracted to Cas (cue 1,000+ gifs and photos as evicence:P) but what about Cas? We know he has felt sexual desires and acted on them; but he's still a little harder to read in this aspect to me. I think i can safely assume he feels desire for Dean, but it's odd that i say that based on little to no evidence that immediately jumps to mind. He's sexual, but he's not a sexual being in the same way humans are. His love is shown to us by his actions/emotions towards Dean.**

[elizabethrobertajones](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/157152265083/we-know-dean-is-sexually-attracted-to-cas-cue):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156940858715/we-know-dean-is-sexually-attracted-to-cas-cue):
>
>> > (continuation of sexuality ask) I guess i’m asking, is there any evidence that Cas feels sexual desire for Dean? We are shown that their love for each other is not one sided, but the physical desire part is treated differently on Cas’s end when we look at it through his lens. How he feels and sees and lets us know how he feels for Dean.
>> 
>> Hey there. This is really fascinating, because now that we’ve been told that Heaven’s Biggest No No, their “most sacred oath,” is an angel lying with a human… it really puts A LOT of Castiel’s… reticence? Is that a good word for it? Hesitation, maybe? Or stand-offishness?
>> 
>> Whatever. It puts his long history of keeping Dean at arm’s length (metaphorically, if not physically… personal space, Cas) in perspective.
>> 
>> (oh gosh I’ve got 7.01 on in the background and I’m watching Cas return the souls to purgatory and the whole sad conversation with Dean about apologizing and redeeming himself and… oh no..)
>> 
>> Where was I? Right.
>> 
>> I wonder how hard he’s been shoving down his “illegal” feelings for Dean. Feelings that could literally get him killed for even expressing them, let alone acting on them?
>> 
>> It seems entirely plausible, no?
> 
> Oh gosh, @medeah asked me about this ages ago and I said I’d put something together and then forgot because it was like 5 minutes before everyone began arriving for my Lord of the Rings marathon. >.> I love the new context we got which explains why Cas would hold back but here’s some stuff I cobbled together at the time before we had it confirmed SO loudly that this is like the Ultimate Taboo for angels…
> 
> medeah  
> Hi, Lizzy! […] I would really like to know your thoughts about Cas’s sexuality and if there is really a possibility that he can have a relationship of that nature with Dean (given of course that the show has the courage to do something like that, but I refuse to lose hope). I think that while there’s no doubt that Cas loves Dean, I don’t know if he could exactly feel sexual desire towards him, he already has said that he finds sex  “boring” (along with wars, the repetition) but then again he hadn’t experience it first-hand yet, not until April and now he could at least remember how that feels (unless something like the pb and jelly sandwich happens and as much as he wants to feel that again he is simply unable to do it being an angel and all) I’ve read somewhere that Cas could be demi sexual, my impression is that while he doesn’t loathe the idea, he isn’t exactly feel incline to have sexual relationships, not like Dean (I rewatched S05X03, the “personal space” scene, and Dean is so blatantly flirting with Cas at the point of make me think that if Cas had understand all that references, glances and Dean’s body language, they would have ended up in bed, right there, ugh!) but since Cas can’t say no to Dean and thinking that  it could make him happy, he would agree to have sex with him, progressing into somewhat an acquired taste?. Hope this isn’t too long or too inarticulate, or too in the wrong place, I don’t know what I’m doing ;)
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> […] I agree Cas is demisexual and portrayed as such. I also think if the SHOW decides to hook up Dean n Cas they’re really not going to pay that more than lip service if they were 100% committed to Destiel, they’re just not super sensitive to things like that :P
> 
> I think that Cas has shown attraction to Dean though, maybe not as consistently as Dean checking him out but there are moments [quick elaboration now I’m not preparing for a party: the first one that jumped to mind was in 6x18 which for some reason was on my mind, a couple of people caught Cas really eyeing him up and Dean flirting but it’s sort of hidden in the background especially that Dean seems to be looking at Cas -
> 
>  <http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/141562344965> 
> 
> That’s right at the end of the episode when Dean’s in his hot new cowboy outfit and there’s another gifset which sadly has frozen after a new round of Tumblr borking everything, catching Cas’s smile at the very last moment before Dean puts on the cowboy hat, all of which looks really flirty and of course implicates Cas in it :P 
> 
> I also in the course of not-answering this properly stumbled on this gifset which is obviously exaggerated with other gifs:
> 
> <http://destiel-is-love-cockles-is-life.tumblr.com/post/145275281965/its-not-that-often-that-we-see-cas-checking-dean>
> 
> But does include a comment that in the actual canon gif Cas still seems to be checking Dean out:
> 
> 10x03 is an interesting one because Dean invites Cas in, basically, and it seems a moment where Dean is the more receptive to a relationship (immediately post demon!Dean and some serious life perspective), but Cas bottles out and picks duty and more work with Heaven over Dean. There’s the infamous bed-clearing (dir. Jensen Ackles) which if you went into the episode all pumped full of the narrative negative space bed eta from season 9, from 9x14 where Dean had his Side and it was implied the other was empty and waiting, and here he is with a cluttered other side of the bed he starts clearing when Cas is in the room… really really suggests he was about to proposition Cas to stay with him. In light of 12x10 the fact that Cas switches gears to want to return to his work with Hannah and get the fuck away from Dean before he just tackles him onto the bed, books or not… Yeah :P I feel like 12x10 subtly confirms for me Cas’s attraction in scenarios like this one where the burden was on Cas to make a move/accept a proposition, and he, well, recoils and leaves.
> 
> (There’s some people who missed season 10 in fandom and all the flaility about this - when I went back in my 10x03 tag I found a lot of references to this moment but no gifset… I’m still 6 episodes off in my rewatch and intend to make one, but for now here’s a crappy tiny gif of after Dean peeled away from talking nose to nose with Cas to start tidying - 
> 
> I capped it using a program without sound so I can’t remember wtf dialogue corresponds to this but I’m fairly sure it’s before Cas says anything about leaving.)
> 
> Honestly though, despite how the acting for Cas is routinely more “madly in love” than “extremely turned on in your presence” there’s stuff like that whole “at least I don’t look like a lumberjack” nonsense that suggests Cas is well aware of how Dean looks and has some ideas about how aesthetically pleasing he is or not… Combined with how it’s easy to read Cas as in love with Dean, the fact he’s developing standards about how Dean looks is fairly amusing to me. 
> 
> Also there’s the time Cas was human and now we have hindsight that this is maybe the one time Cas DIDN’T feel stuck with that sacred oath it’s all the more interesting… He’s pretty bitchy to Dean in 9x06 because of being a jilted lover, but in 9x09 he’s outrageously flirty, 
> 
> and has picked hunting as a profession and in like 1 episode flat screen time accelerated right through the process of trying to live a normal human life (the Dean and Lisa parallel) to I guess the whole “what’s it like settling down with a hunter” mindset :P In that case if we use the tried and tested hunting = dating metaphor, Dean has to turn down Cas’s strong advances, but it’s not like Cas isn’t flirting in the first place without any of the narrative or set stuff to back it up (and yes there’s set stuff too :P)]
> 
> There are more obvious implications though [which aren’t really coming from Cas so much as the show implying there is/could be a sexual element to Cas’s interest in Dean, but like I said about them not really caring about the distinction between love and sex when it comes to personal identity, in a storytelling way, implication can mean just as much in a sort of telling instead of showing way, as in, they might just make these jokes or serious implications as just something people say/they show as a suggestion, but because it’s been layered into the story so much, at least from a writing POV it’s a real part of how Cas feels to the WRITERS even if these things didn’t come directly from Cas… By repeating it enough there’s a narrative that Cas is interested in Dean regardless of how much that’s shown in canon]
> 
> In 11x02 when the angels torture Cas they’re implying he has a sexual relationship with Dean, and it’s one of those why say it if it’s not at least an element of the story (in the sense Cas could have the potential) [hi, hindsight Lizzy again - and 12x10 makes it a STRONG element of the story that angels loving humans is such a no-no, making the choice of these angels back in 11x02 to specifically threaten Cas’s genitals, all that more intriguing because now we KNOW there’s a taboo about it, it’s clearer than ever this is what the angels meant by that and that they’re accusing Cas of breaking that oath - the confrontation probably mirrors the 12x10 one to Akobel although I will have to watch them side by side to comment >.>]
> 
> There’s lots of other things in this bracket that come from stuff characters imply or joke about them, which is less serious but still does the same basic work - outside judgements on Cas’s interest in Dean which just go so far but there are SO MANY of them that there’s a very persistent narrative regardless that it’s just what people think, that it ends up occupying two layers of “other people’s judgement of what Cas feels about Dean” and “the list of people implying he’s into Dean” which we can easily take as read after it’s been said so many times. I mean, that’s a lot of the earlier seasons subtext right there; the jokes about their relationship are almost all in a very specific block of the show. “Blow me, Cas” “Cas get out of my ass” etc have similar implications from Dean… you can file that under Dean projecting or Dean lashing out or whatever but essentially Dean understands at least some aspect of his relationship with Cas to have the potential for a sexual relationship. 
> 
> The 5x18 one always interests me because of the parallels of Dean lashing out at Bobby for not being his father, Sam for the very specific issues of faith/trust in his brother tailored to THEIR current argument, and then all these sexual barbs at Cas. Makes you wonder if he’s tailoring the other insults to the recipient why he lands on that for Cas :P He has a lot of weird reactions to Cas when it comes to personal space and all that in the early seasons, and calls Cas creepy a few times - it’s written off as Cas’s lack of people skills, and you can throw in more of Dean projecting, but Cas DOES have a strong interest in him one way or another, and treats him differently so there’s a lot of room to suggest Dean was at least picking up some vibe from Cas he didn’t know what to make of. I’m not sure I would say it WAS sexual so early on (I would agree it could be romantic) but it’s part of a lot of implications and stuff in a writing way rather than a character way they build on to later start seriously telling us Cas is in love.
> 
> In season 9 they REALLY worked on that and I am reminded of the “Cas’s fake Heaven is pictures of naked Dean” nonsense… Again not really something Cas DOES but something implied about him. It was cut but I think 11x02 re-introduces the same ideas of 9x22 (gosh I wonder who is responsible for that :P) with the ANGELS making the judgement on Cas that he’s sexually interested in Dean, while also telling us he’s in love, and the LOVE part of it is definitely supported repeatedly by pretty much all the events in season 9. 
> 
> While I’m a huge fan of ace!Cas, and it makes sense still especially judging him against how the other angels behave, Dabb especially has been involved in crafting a fairly long game to show us how the angels feel about Dean and Cas being in love… With 12x10 I now really really think that this is also telling us that Cas WOULD be interested but has been keeping to that oath at least with far more restraint and self-punishment than many angels. Which lets us have our cake and eat it with ace!Cas behaviour vs other angels’ behaviour, but also Cas’s growing interest in Dean as it becomes a “problem” to Heaven I guess also something Cas struggles with more and creates the strong reactions the angels have to him and Dean, because it just makes sense he’d be in conflict to this. There’s a great meta about the forbidden love aspect this introduces for Cas that I reblogged after that episode.
> 
> Anyway I think the Cas in actual romantic love with Dean subtext is powerful enough that the question of sexuality is more of a fandom question to wonder about the dynamics of it… If the show wanted to put them together, we already have enough evidence of romantic interest from Cas and sexual & romantic interest from Dean that’s obvious. The more nuanced reading I guess would be for us :P I think in this case society sucking at differentiating between love and attraction as a split model works in our favour. >.> 

Source: [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/156940858715/we-know-dean-is-sexually-attracted-to-cas-cue)

Reblogged from [flyingfish1](https://flyingfish1.tumblr.com/post/157177386343/we-know-dean-is-sexually-attracted-to-cas-cue)

 

 

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn 10.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.03) [spn 9.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.09) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)

 

 


	111. Chapter 111

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my addition to a reply by tinkdw

[Jun 16, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/161893583390/part-of-me-wants-dean-to-admit-his-feelings-for)

108 notes

**Anonymous asked: Part of me wants Dean to admit his feelings for Cas to someone else (Sam, Jody, or even another person they help) and for him to be emotional. But the other part of me wants Cas to be the first one to hear about his feelings, if you get what I mean.**

[tinkdw](https://tinkdw.tumblr.com/post/161886153152/part-of-me-wants-dean-to-admit-his-feelings-for):

> How about a middle ground?
> 
> Dean exposes to the  _audience_  that he has romantic feelings for Cas, by being a general mess and acting differently, without actually saying it out loud. Jody, Sam and others tiptoe around the issue but it’s blatantly obvious to the audience what is going on.
> 
> Dean only finally admits his feelings directly to Cas :)

 

Or like in 9.01, it could take the form of prayer. Admitting it out loud (to the audience) but the intent of the message being directed to Cas, whether or not he’s able to “hear” the message yet.

They have spent far more than enough time showing Dean being a general mess while everyone else tiptoes around him. Plus as long as Mary’s still missing, there is a portion of the general audience who will attribute Dean’s behavior to Mary being gone and write off the fact that any of his feelings are about Cas.

There needs to be an obvious distinction made, that he’s being affected by both things in different ways. Dean just “being a general mess” does not cut it anymore.

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	112. Chapter 112

[spn okay](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-have-FEELINGS-about-princess-bride-parallels-to-spn-okay)

[Jun 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162069283385/12-ugh-do-you-ever-just-stop-and-think-about-how)

28 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 Ugh, do you ever just stop and think about how *good* Dean and Cas are for each other? How they call out each other's bullshit but accept the worst parts of each other? How their love for each other is truly, deeply unconditional? How patient they are with each other's mistakes and fallacies, because they've helped each other realize it's ok to be imperfect and need help? How they truly *know* each other in ways no one else has? Because i do and it makes me WEEP.**

2/2 I think the only other person who really *gets* Dean is Crowley, but even then the relationship wasn’t “I *see* you. I *know* you. I truly accept and flow with every bit of you” like Dean and Cas’s relationship. Same with Cas and Meg, though that wasn’t as explored as the Dean and Crowley parallel/counterpart/whatever. Even Dean and Sam are only recently getting to a deeper level, and I would argue Cas’s presence in Dean’s life has influenced that openness and healing.  
  


Hi there! And yeah, I may have thought about this a time or two (actually my problem is trying to think of something  _other_  that how good Dean and Cas are for each other… :P)

But yes. This right here. I’ve been sitting on this all afternoon with the intention of writing a very long and detailed reply, but then I realized I can probably just point at like… my entire blog. Saves typing. :D

 

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	113. Chapter 113

[Jun 21, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162093598705/i-think-one-thing-that-helps-me-not-be-a-bitter)

29 notes

**Anonymous asked: I think one thing that helps me not be a bitter cas fan/bitter destiel shipper is truly looking at not just the quantity of the destiel stuff and Cas's character focus, but the *quality* of it. Of course i'd love for cas to be in more eps, but sometimes that's just not plausible reality for whatever reason. But i think the show makes really good use of the time they have with Cas, which i can't say for other shows with characters like Cas. I think SPN struggled at times, but they keep trying:-)**

Same, dearie. After feeling like Cas was just sort of standing around in the background for a while during s10 especially, it finally feels like we’re back on track.

And I will never get over how strange it is to talk about how Cas’s character development is “on track” while he’s spending the hellatus lying dead on the ground, but heck this is Supernatural…

I personally hope (like I’ve done every year) that maybe this will be the season where we start getting MORE Cas, but yeah. At least the Cas we got in s12 was excellent character-wise and even during the interminable stretch between 12.15 and 12.19 (and heck it was only three episodes but felt interminable because of the mini-hellatus and our– and Dean’s– generalized worry about Cas). It took the “where’s the angel?” fandom outcry from the past and shoved it into in-show active “WHERE’S THE ANGEL?” from Dean.

 

 

[castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	114. Chapter 114

[Jun 21, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162100738200/the-way-dean-never-denies-cas-being-his-loverlove)

613 notes

**Anonymous asked: The way Dean never denies Cas being his lover/love interest is a trope i personally see very often. Often, the person does not want to deny it because a) they do have feelings for the person and/or b) they don't want to deny it for fear of it never happening, or the other person thinking they don't want that kind of relationship with them. They one being teased/accused may act annoyed, but there's never a denial.**

Yeah. All these years, he’s NEVER offered even a token “Dude, I don’t feel that way.” Never once a “He’s not my type.” And the biggie: “I’m straight.” Never said it. Never said anything at all to contradict any of that “teasing.”

Even in 10.05 when Sam and Dean discussed “Dea-stiel” in the actual text:

**SAM** : I don’t understand.  
 **DEAN** : Me neither.  
 **SAM** : I mean, shouldn’t it be… Deastiel ?  
 **DEAN** : Really ? That’s your issue with this ?  
 **SAM** : (smirks) No, of course it’s not my issue. You know… How about Sastiel ? Samstiel ?  
 **DEAN** : Ok, alright. You know what ? You’re gonna do that thing, where you just shut the hell up. Forever.  
(Sam laughs.)

Sam hears the whole thing from Dean, and his only quibble at first is  _how the ship name is pronounced_. And then his second line of approach is by turning it around and wondering why they don’t ship HIM with Cas. AND THAT IS WHAT GETS DEAN’S GOAT HERE.

>.>

Because true or not, based in fact on his own life experiences or not,  _he’s technically just been outed_. He didn’t shut down Marie’s assessment of the subtext. He didn’t put the kibosh on her Destiel interpretation. He turned around by the end of the episode, and told them all to put as much sub into that text as they could… 

**MARIE** : Oh, it’s just subtext ! But, then again, you know, you can’t spell subtext without…. s-e-x.

So… 

 

 

[spn 10.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.05) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [dean winchester is bilingual](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-winchester-is-bilingual) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	115. Chapter 115

[Jun 26, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162280609265/a-whole-season-later-still-stuck-on-the-fact-that)

325 notes

**Anonymous asked: A whole season later, still stuck on the fact that the "pining for someone follow your heart line" was said to Dean and Amara used Cas' heart to locate Dean. Sigh...**

I KNOW. FOLLOW YOUR HEART. 

**Mildred** : You wanna know the secret to living a long and happy life?  
 **Dean** : Actually, I do.  
 **Mildred** : Follow your heart. You do that, all the rest just figures itself out. I did that, I followed my heart. Traveled the world, made people smile, forget about their problems for a while. And then my heart said, ‘well, you’re done.’ I had my fill and retired and I love it.

he’s pining for someone else

And then in [11.21](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fscreencapped.net%2Ftv%2Fsupernatural%2Fdisplayimage.php%3Falbum%3D1727%26pid%3D1975285%23top_display_media&t=M2E2ZWVhNjEwMGRkOTZiMjdlYmRjOTQ3YWI0NTE3ZTBhZjJkN2FhOSxSeGVqRFRBYw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F162280609265%2Fa-whole-season-later-still-stuck-on-the-fact-that&m=1)…

She knocks Lucifer unconscious and makes a stunning realization that she hadn’t understood previously:

Touching Cas’s heart (because Lucifer’s been forced to “sleep” so it’s CAS she’s connecting with here) delivers her directly to Dean:

She followed Cas’s heart to Dean.

And then in [11.22](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fscreencapped.net%2Ftv%2Fsupernatural%2Fthumbnails.php%3Falbum%3D1727%26page%3D31&t=YjY4ZDkzMGUxY2RlNWFlYWUyZTc5ZjQzMzQ5NmM3ZDUzMTM4ZGQ5ZCxSeGVqRFRBYw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F162280609265%2Fa-whole-season-later-still-stuck-on-the-fact-that&m=1) she practically has to force Dean to even look at her

But he tells her she’s wrong about his feelings, and confronting her like this somehow mysteriously frees Lucifer (and by Lucifer I mean Cas) from his bonds:

Amara reaches for Dean again, but he slowly backs away:

She never gets to touch his heart, as it were…

  

 

[spn 11.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.11) [spn 11.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.21) [spn 11.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.22) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	116. Chapter 116

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a short interlude of 11.11 related posts that should've had this tag

[Jan 27, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/138190542160/okay-mildreds-line-that-she-can-sense-pining)

526 notes

Okay, Mildred’s line that she can sense “pining?” That can’t possibly be about Amara, and I’ll tell you why.

Dean admitted that he might feel attraction, or something like that, something he isn’t in control of, and whatever it is, it SCARES him. THAT IS NOT WHAT PINING IS.

The definition of pining is to miss someone, specifically LONGING for their return.

Pretty sure that whatever manufactured “attraction” Dean feels for Amara is closer to revulsion than longing. He feels powerless to resist it, though. THAT IS NOT PINING. THAT’S DEAN BEING TERRIFIED THAT HE’S NOT GOING TO HAVE A CHOICE AND WILL GIVE IN TO HER.

So who’s this person he’s actually pining for? Because when Mildred asked Dean if he wanted to know the secret to a long and happy life, he practically jumped over himself to say yes, TELL ME THE SECRET MILDRED.

I made several posts during the episode about how Mildred seemed so ready to believe everything about monsters and hunting. For such a grounded and unshakable lady, she seemed REMARKABLY PRESCIENT. Or at least sensitive.

And that’s where my Patsy Cline meta kicks in. This woman who’d made a career (one she thoroughly enjoyed) playing Patsy on stage. Patsy, a woman whose life was filled with little foreshadowing moments like Mildred seems to have on the regular.

 

[spn 11.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.11) [spn s11 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-spoilers)

 

 

 

 

Jan 28, 2016

36 notes

When we got the preview of Dean’s sunset chat with Mildred, [I added some of my own thoughts to it.](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/138098505040/ibelieveinthelittletreetopper-thecwspn-dean)* But what I am particularly excited about were the parallels between Mildred and Patsy Cline. And because THERE IS JUST TOO MUCH, I’m putting it under a cut. With the caveat that I adore Patsy Cline for a billion reasons, so even if you’re not into the meta thing here, just go listen to her music. *enthusiastically pushes Patsy Cline on everyone*

I’ll start by pasting in the Patsy-related stuff from that post here:

> And she tells him to FOLLOW HIS HEART. *clutches at my own heart because whoa*
> 
> And Mildred spent her career in a Patsy Cline tribute band? OH MY GOSH my head just exploded. Patsy Cline was born just outside Winchester, Virginia. One of her early career breaks was singing on the radio with Jimmy Dean, and for so many reasons she was a groundbreaking artist (the first female ever to receive top billing for a concert ahead of the male performers also on the bill, just as an example).
> 
> Arguably her biggest hit was  _Crazy_ , but her first big hit song,  _I Fall To Pieces_  (recorded shortly before she was involved in a near fatal car crash), includes this verse:
> 
> _“I fall to pieces,_ _Each time I see you again,_ _I fall to pieces,_ _How can I be just your friend?”_  
> 
> One of the last songs she recorded (or at least her last big hit) before she was killed in an airplane crash (at the age of 30) after performing in Kansas, was called “ _Sweet Dreams.”_
> 
> Sweet dreams of you  
> Every night I go through  
> Why can’t I forget you and start my life anew  
> Instead of having sweet dreams about you  
>   
> You don’t love me, it’s plain  
> I should know, I’ll never wear your ring  
> I should hate you the whole night through  
> Instead of having sweet dreams about you  
>   
> Sweet dreams of you  
> Things I know can’t come true  
> Why can’t I forget the past, start loving someone new  
> Instead of having sweet dreams about you
> 
> Strangely, so many of her songs (and other statements she made) seemed to be prophetic. She’d been offered a ride back to Nashville, but declined saying she’d take her chances in the airplane despite inclement weather and a pilot unfamiliar with flying in those conditions. She declined the ride with,  “Don’t worry about me, Hoss. When it’s my time to go, it’s my time.”
> 
> So yeah. Patsy Cline tribute band, anyone?

Watching her chat with Sam, she accepted his claim to be a “monster hunter” IMMEDIATELY, without question, and then proceeded to FINISH HIS SENTENCES. When Sam says banshees feed on…. without hesitation Mildred finishes with BRAINS. Not a question, not having read any of the lore, just looking on the picture of the thing. She figured it out.

Then when Sam brings up her heart condition, Mildred is the one to suggest she’s VULNERABLE. The exact word Sam and Dean had used to describe the banshee’s previous victims. It’s almost as if Mildred might be a tad psychic or something.

Mildred is also really comfortable, settled, content with her life in every way. She follows her heart, goes after what she wants. Open and accepting of whatever comes her way, even being used as “bait” for the banshee and joining in the fight, readily accepting the knife.

She also takes Dean aside initially to give Sam and Eileen a chance to have a private moment (little matchmaking after her chat with Eileen earlier).

She’s also got a really sharp perception of Dean. Without even being told about what their lives as hunters are like, she just seems to  _know_  what Dean needs to hear. And she said she was “DEADLY SERIOUS.”

Then just as the sun sets, when Dean’s recovering from the vulnerable moment full of references to following your heart and how to be happy, THAT’S when the banshee shows up and goes after Dean.

All of this makes it impossible for me to just dismiss Mildred’s feeling about Dean pining away for someone. She repeats her advice to “follow his heart.” As if she already knew what he needed to hear way back during their sunset chat, and was just trying to reinforce the lesson for him there.

The fact they mentioned the Patsy Cline thing TWICE, once with Sam pointing out her performance poster, and again while she was talking to Dean makes me believe that yes, this was an intentional parallel.

And then there’s the poster itself *brace yourselves for my incredibly screencap talents as I literally take a picture of my tv screen with my phone*

All of this is very interesting. First, the poster itself, with the headline song being “Walkin’ After Midnight,” which was Patsy’s first hit song, on both the country and pop charts.

> I go out walkin’ after midnight  
> Out in the moonlight, just like we used to do  
> I’m always walkin’ after midnight  
> Searchin’ for you  
>   
> I walk for miles along the highway  
> Well, that’s just my way of sayin’ I love you  
> I’m always walkin’ after midnight  
> Searchin’ for you  
>   
> I stop to see a weepin’ willow  
> Cryin’ on his pillow  
> Maybe he’s cryin’ for me  
> And as the skies turn gloomy  
> Night winds whisper to me  
> I’m lonesome as I can be  
>   
> I go out walkin’ after midnight  
> Out in the starlight, just hoping you may be   
> Somewhere a-walkin’ after midnight  
> Searchin’ for me  
>   
> I stop to see a weepin’ willow  
> Cryin’ on his pillow  
> Maybe he’s cryin’ for me  
> And as the skies turn gloomy  
> Night winds whisper to me  
> I’m lonesome as I can be  
>   
> I go out walkin’ after midnight  
> Out in the starlight, just hoping you may be   
> Somewhere a-walkin’ after midnight  
> Searchin’ for me 

Just like Patsy, Mildred got top billing over everyone else, even apparently the men. I was curious about the other acts on the bill, because I figured they might be invented, and BOY WAS I HAPPY I LOOKED INTO IT!

First of all, Neuman and the Moonshiners isn’t any band I could find, but there were references to actual moonshine, and oddly a link to the pedigree of a purebred Weimaraner named “Neuman’s Moonshine.” Dog reference? Possibly not intentionally, but there it is anyway.

Second, and MORE INTERESTING TO ME is the reference to THE SQUANKTONES. Because what the everloving hell is a SQUANKTONE? I googled it, and [THIS SITE](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fsquanktone.com%2F&t=M2EwOGRmNTQ2ZWQ0N2IwN2JhODMwZGY3YTgxNWY0MDk3Mjk3NjhkNCxVRGFhZFc4Nw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F138223635045%2Fwhen-we-got-the-preview-of-deans-sunset-chat-with&m=1) was the first result. Their banner headline is “WHEN NO OTHER TONE WILL DO” and they apparently manufacture sound equipment.

The site’s secondary headline goes on to define “squank” thusly:

> squank: (n)  
>   
> An unseen energy or force said to be the basis of all music creativity.  From pre-macedonian lore related to those that are deeply driven by musical ambition. 

Now I KNOW they had to float this past all the fair usage people and such, because they wouldn’t be allowed to reference an actual band without attribution, so SOMEONE GOOGLED THIS UP BEFORE MAKING THAT POSTER AND DELIBERATELY INCLUDED IT KNOWING WHAT PEOPLE WOULD FIND IF THEY GOOGLED IT UP.

“Hanah McGee and the Starlites” matched zero known documents. It stumped google! And hey, that doesn’t happen very often! So cool just on its own there. Maybe now it’ll only reference this very post. WHEEE! *impotently yells out FIRST*

Not to mention her concert was at the historic Gruene Hall. Not too shabby a gig. Mildred must’ve been pretty incredible to garner top billing there.

All through her life, Patsy fought against a system that was male dominated, befriending and helping other female performers. I mean, I could just go on and on about her, but the [wikipedia article on her](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPatsy_Cline&t=MmZmMzU5YzdkZmQ4ZTcxN2IzNjg5NzJiZjQ4Nzk2MjM0ZjYyYzk1MixVRGFhZFc4Nw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F138223635045%2Fwhen-we-got-the-preview-of-deans-sunset-chat-with&m=1) covers most of it, if you want the full story.

But then what does Mildred do with Dean (and even with Eileen)? Exactly what Patsy did with dozens of young female artists: pulls him aside and gives him a little advice and a life lesson. Because just like Mildred, Patsy had some really REALLY eerie shit happen to her, but she just kept on following her heart, doing what she wanted to do, even to her death. Which is why I AM SO HAPPY that both Mildred and Eileen survived this episode, and there was such a focus on the fact that Sam and Dean both looked at the retirement home with some hope for the future; and some hope that the might even live long enough to enjoy that kind of future.

Now on to the other reference I thought was significant re: the poster. Mildred’s last name was Baker, and Sam was using the alias “Butler.” Yeah, they were referencing Black Sabbath (with Dean as Agent Osbourne), but I googled up Butler and Baker, because that just seemed to odd a combo to pass up. All I got were references to [Genesis 40: 20-23](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.biblegateway.com%2Fresources%2Fcommentaries%2FMatthew-Henry%2FGen%2FChief-Butler-Baker-Pharaoh&t=YTJiNWI4NzA5Y2YzMGI4Mzg3ZTk3OGRlODVkYTc1Y2M1ZGYwODk0YyxVRGFhZFc4Nw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F138223635045%2Fwhen-we-got-the-preview-of-deans-sunset-chat-with&m=1). So we’re back to biblical Genesis references again! This season is just LITTERED with them.

It’s the story of Pharaoh’s chief butler and baker, and the interpretation of their dreams by Joseph. THE INTERPRETATION OF THEIR DREAMS. Just shoot me now, Robbie Thompson. I am now convinced that he’s studied Genesis extensively.

From the Genesis link above:

> It was not so much the prison that made the butler and baker sad, as their dreams. God has more ways than one to sadden the spirits. Joseph had compassion towards them. Let us be concerned for the sadness of our brethren’s countenances. It is often a relief to those that are in trouble to be noticed. Also learn to look into the causes of our own sorrow. Is there a good reason? Is there not comfort sufficient to balance it, whatever it is? Why art thou cast down, O my soul? Joseph was
> 
> careful to ascribe the glory to God. The chief butler’s dream foretold his advancement. The chief baker’s dream his death. It was not Joseph’s fault that he brought the baker no better tidings. And thus ministers are but interpreters; they cannot make the thing otherwise than it is: if they deal faithfully, and their message prove unpleasing, it is not their fault. Joseph does not reflect upon his brethren that sold him; nor does he reflect on the wrong done him by his mistress and his master,
> 
> but mildly states his own innocence. When we are called on to clear ourselves, we should carefully avoid, as much as may be, speaking ill of others. Let us be content to prove ourselves innocent, and not upbraid others with their guilt.

The butler and the baker had both been imprisoned for displeasing Pharaoh, but the butler’s dream (and in this case Sam is the butler) foretold his restoration to Pharaoh’s good graces and his previous job. Forgiveness and redemption.

The baker, however, (in this case referring to Mildred), was not so lucky with his dream’s interpretation:

> “This is the interpretation of it: The three baskets are three days. Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head from you and hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh from you.” 

Just like the banshee’s MO, of cracking open heads and eating the insides. BUT THIS DID NOT COME TO PASS, because of THIS LINE:

From another bible commentary site, and I highly recommend reading [the entire bit of Genesis 40 there at this link](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.enduringword.com%2Fcommentaries%2F0140.htm&t=NmRjNzAzNTNmNWZiOGI2NzBhNGM1MDIwMDAxMGIzODFmOTQ0NjhmMyxVRGFhZFc4Nw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F138223635045%2Fwhen-we-got-the-preview-of-deans-sunset-chat-with&m=1) for the full context, because DAMN. Joseph and his dreamcoat stuff.

BUT THIS IS KEY HERE FOR BOTH MILDRED’S SURVIVAL AS WELL AS DEAN’S AND SAM’S: c.  **Do not interpretations belong to God?**  God may certainly speak through dreams and many passages of Scripture show this (Genesis 20:3; 28:12; 31:11; 31:24; Numbers 12:6; 1 Samuel 28:6; Joel 2:28; Matthew 1:20; 2:13; 2:22). However, not every dream is a revelation from God. We must be careful about putting too much weight on dreams.

NOT EVERY DREAM IS A REVELATION FROM GOD. WE MUST BE CAREFUL ABOUT PUTTING TOO MUCH WEIGHT ON DREAMS.

Gee. No kidding.

But the conclusion to the tale is that Joseph remained in prison, forgotten by the butler after being restored to his place of honor, while the baker was indeed executed. Because GOD HAD ANOTHER PURPOSE FOR JOSEPH TO BE IN PRISON (apparently, which I can believe because God, at least in SPN-land, is kind of a dick).

One last thing of note (at least for this particular bit of meta), back to Patsy’s car accident that I mentioned in the original post linked above and the copied text from that post: She’d been thrown into the windshield and nearly killed. She suffered a massive head injury, leaving scars and ongoing trouble with headaches for the rest of her life. Sorta like Dean described at the end of the episode after having his head nearly bashed in by the banshee.

And the sheer interesting fact that the monster was a banshee (who hurts its victims with song), and the two heroes of the story were a singer (who brought happiness her audiences with song), and a deaf woman who couldn’t hear EITHER of those songs.

Very nice.

 

[spn 11.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.11) [spn s11 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-spoilers) [sorry i just really love Patsy Cline and may have read WAY TOO MUCH into that reference pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sorry-i-just-really-love-Patsy-Cline-and-may-have-read-WAY-TOO-MUCH-into-that-reference-pffft) [but at least i now feel the references are ENTIRELY JUSTIFIED by the rest of the episode and Mildred herself as a character](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-at-least-i-now-feel-the-references-are-ENTIRELY-JUSTIFIED-by-the-rest-of-the-episode-and-Mildred-herself-as-a-character) [not to mention the magnificent Eileen (we better see her on the show again)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/not-to-mention-the-magnificent-Eileen-%28we-better-see-her-on-the-show-again%29) [mittens quotes the bible again pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mittens-quotes-the-bible-again-pffft) [i am really interested in all the genesis/prebiblical stuff we've been getting about s11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-am-really-interested-in-all-the-genesis%2Fprebiblical-stuff-we%27ve-been-getting-about-s11) [who ever thought all of these things would be relevant to one another? but here you go this episode was a magnificent pile of references](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/who-ever-thought-all-of-these-things-would-be-relevant-to-one-another%3F-but-here-you-go-this-episode-was-a-magnificent-pile-of-references) [robbie thompson is a treasure](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/robbie-thompson-is-a-treasure) [i mean i had to reference patsy cline and squank and black sabbath and genesis and banshees and dogs and moonshine IN ONE POST](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-i-had-to-reference-patsy-cline-and-squank-and-black-sabbath-and-genesis-and-banshees-and-dogs-and-moonshine-IN-ONE-POST)[good luck with this y'all](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/good-luck-with-this-y%27all) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [because there's a little bit of destiel in everything nowadays](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-there%27s-a-little-bit-of-destiel-in-everything-nowadays) [for reference please also see the thing i wrote about mildred's comment about dean pining for someone](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/for-reference-please-also-see-the-thing-i-wrote-about-mildred%27s-comment-about-dean-pining-for-someone) [if you're wondering who dean's wandering around looking for in the starlight while walkin after midnight](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you%27re-wondering-who-dean%27s-wandering-around-looking-for-in-the-starlight-while-walkin-after-midnight) [because trust me IT IS NOT THE DARKNESS](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-trust-me-IT-IS-NOT-THE-DARKNESS) [he might be trapped in the darkness but he''s searching for the light and hoping that particular someone is also searching for him](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/he-might-be-trapped-in-the-darkness-but-he%27%27s-searching-for-the-light-and-hoping-that-particular-someone-is-also-searching-for-him)

 

*

There are several things I love about this. First of all, when she asks Dean if he wants to know the secret to a long and happy life, Dean doesn’t hesitate at all, and emphatically says YES. He really IS looking for something more, with someone, and possibly feelings.

And she tells him to FOLLOW HIS HEART. *clutches at my own heart because whoa*

And Mildred spent her career in a Patsy Cline tribute band? OH MY GOSH my head just exploded. Patsy Cline was born just outside Winchester, Virginia. One of her early career breaks was singing on the radio with Jimmy Dean, and for so many reasons she was a groundbreaking artist (the first female ever to receive top billing for a concert ahead of the male performers also on the bill, just as an example).

Arguably her biggest hit was  _Crazy_ , but her first big hit song,  _I Fall To Pieces_  (recorded shortly before she was involved in a near fatal car crash), includes this verse:

> _“I fall to pieces,_ _Each time I see you again,_ _I fall to pieces,_ _How can I be just your friend?”_

One of the last songs she recorded (or at least her last big hit) before she was killed in an airplane crash (at the age of 30) after performing in Kansas, was called “ _Sweet Dreams.”_

> Sweet dreams of you  
> Every night I go through  
> Why can’t I forget you and start my life anew  
> Instead of having sweet dreams about you  
>   
> You don’t love me, it’s plain  
> I should know, I’ll never wear your ring  
> I should hate you the whole night through  
> Instead of having sweet dreams about you  
>   
> Sweet dreams of you  
> Things I know can’t come true  
> Why can’t I forget the past, start loving someone new  
> Instead of having sweet dreams about you

Strangely, so many of her songs (and other statements she made) seemed to be prophetic. She’d been offered a ride back to Nashville, but declined saying she’d take her chances in the airplane despite inclement weather and a pilot unfamiliar with flying in those conditions. She declined the ride with,  “Don’t worry about me, Hoss. When it’s my time to go, it’s my time.”

So yeah. Patsy Cline tribute band, anyone?

And I also enjoy the idea of Dean enjoying the idea of retirement. Finding it unexpectedly pleasant… :P

 

 

[Jan 29, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/138288164775/texasbowlegs-okay-but-where-are-all-the-awesome)

375 notes

[texasbowlegs](http://texasbowlegs.tumblr.com/post/138244350096):

> okay but where are all the awesome metas about dean’s autonomy and free will and agency being taken away by his connection w/ amara and it  _scaring_ him?
> 
>   
> 

Just scrolling through the last few days worth of things I’ve reblobbed and/or written/added to:

[There](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/138225172945/jensen-said-that-at-first-he-thought-that-dean-was) [Have](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/138190542160/okay-mildreds-line-that-she-can-sense-pining) [Been](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/138196821830/oh-nooo-that-comic-made-me-feel-sad-a-little) [Many](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/138217436200/elizabethrobertajones-11x11-watching-notes-fuck) posts that include mentions of this, including summaries of the episode that are of a more general whole-episode nature.

The entire nature of Amara’s hold over Dean has been presented as unwanted and scary to Dean from the start. When Dean still had the Mark, he could believe that the Mark was changing him, affecting him from the inside, and it fed and amplified his “darkest” thoughts (dark in the Dark Charlie vs good Charlie sense, because I still think that episode defines a lot of the light vs dark themes the show is still using).

Now The Darkness is free, and Dean theoretically  _should_  be free of its influence since the Mark is gone from his arm. And yeah, he’s not being compelled to go on killing sprees to satisfy the Mark’s power, but he  _is_  still being affected.

From 11.01, Amara pulled him out of the Impala and had a very creepy chat with him in the middle of the darknado, then dropped him in a field of flowers. She gave him the warning that because they’re “bound,” they can’t hurt each other. So here’s this “lady” telling Dean that she’s the embodiment of the force of pure destruction that he’s spent the last year and a half fighting against inside his own head. A force that, at one point, turned him into a demon. A force that’s been taking his control away from him– taking his Free Will from him– for  _a year and a half_.

He confessed to Cas that  _he never wanted to become that demon again_ , and would rather DIE, permanently and completely and forever, than risk it happening again. He asked Cas to “throw him into the freaking sun” rather than lose control to it again, all the way back in 10.09.

We already knew that the Mark’s power terrified him, and has terrified him for a long, long time. *I’m currently watching 9.16 as I type this up, and it has one of the first HOLY SHIT WHAT HAVE I DONE moments for Dean, when Magus puts the First Blade into his hand and Dean completely loses control of himself. He tells Dean that the effect will only grow more powerful the more “used to the feelings” he becomes. Magnus then performs a spell on Dean that effectively drained Dean of “all thought, all will,” to keep him compliant. When Dean uses the blade to kill Magnus, there’s this faraway quality to Sam’s voice, like Dean can’t really hear him through whatever the blade is forcing him to hear… The look on his face when he finally drops the blade says it all. ([x](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fdisplayimage.php%3Falbum%3D197%26pid%3D242507%23top_display_media&t=MDFlYTYyOTRhMzk1ZTM2MjhiMWNmYmE0ZWFlOTIzMjYyM2Y1NzJjYyxFYkkzNmhlTQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F138288164775%2Ftexasbowlegs-okay-but-where-are-all-the-awesome&m=1))

So the fact that Dean finds what the Mark/First Blade does to him abhorrent, but a necessary evil, a means to the end of killing Abaddon, is not a new development. Because Amara said it herself: She is the original Mark.

So take everything we know Dean thinks and feels about the Mark and transfer it to Amara, because that’s what Dean did.

Now he realizes that the Mark is not only gone from his arm, it’s out there walking around autonomously. The same way the Mark drove Dean to kill in order to “feed” it (language that’s been used since Crowley’s little speech about “least best better” and Dean’s need to kill to appease it), Amara is walking around eating random human souls.

For a while Dean was able to control who he killed to appease the Mark. He tried to use the force for good, you know? He took out demons, vampires, and pedophile rapists (the men Claire saw him kill). But now, because of him– because of course Dean blames himself for Amara being loose in the world– she’s out there just eating random innocent people.

He’s actively attempted to kill her twice now. The first time, he stood there blank-faced and immobile in the face of her power, the same way he did when Magnus took away his will and put the First Blade into his hand. What broke him out of the spell on both of those occasions? Sam. Sam talked him off the ledge at Magnus’s house, and Amara throwing Sam across the room snapped Dean out of the spell the second time. He still wasn’t able to act in time, and Amara ended up throwing Dean across the room to prevent him from attacking her.

The second time, Amara plucked Dean from the park/playground where he’d been standing in broad daylight ordering a hot dog to what would eventually become the Heavenly Smiting Blast Crater Site. He wasn’t given a choice in the matter. She just picked him up and beamed him to her. Then she laid out her plans, that she’s giving the souls she consumes “eternal bliss” inside of her, and she can’t figure out why Dean wouldn’t want that for himself. OF COURSE HE IS REPULSED BECAUSE NO. NO NO NO. DO NOT WANT. Dean knows what her idea of “bliss” is, that vacant-eyed no-thinking loss of control and free will. That’s is Dean’s ultimate Do Not Want scenario, going all the way back to the apocalypse.

What has always been Dean’s highest ideal? Look at this scene from 4.22, the speech that convinced Castiel to rebel once and for all:

> CASTIEL: What is so worth saving? I see nothing but pain here. I see inside you. I see your guilt, your anger, confusion. In paradise, all is forgiven. You’ll be at peace. Even with Sam.
> 
> DEAN:  **You can take your peace… and shove it up your lily-white ass. ‘Cause I’ll take the pain and the guilt. I’ll even take Sam as is. It’s a lot better than being some[Stepford](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Stepford_Wives&t=Y2IxNmQ0YjEyYjAyOTkyYTg5NjIxMjhmNDU0OTY3MzU4MjMyM2FkNixFYkkzNmhlTQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F138288164775%2Ftexasbowlegs-okay-but-where-are-all-the-awesome&m=1) bitch in paradise.** This is simple, Cas! No more crap about being a good soldier. There is a right and there is a wrong here, and you know it.  
> (CASTIEL turns away)  
> Look at me!   
> (DEAN grabs CASTIEL’s shoulder and turns CASTIEL back to face him)  
> You know it! You were gonna help me once, weren’t you? You were gonna [warn me](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3D4.20_The_Rapture&t=MjE2MDc3NDNkZmEyNjlkODYwZjc1NGYzZmE4N2U0MGQzZGI0YmQxMSxFYkkzNmhlTQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F138288164775%2Ftexasbowlegs-okay-but-where-are-all-the-awesome&m=1) about all this, before they dragged you back to Bible camp. Help me – now. Please.
> 
> CASTIEL: What would you have me do?
> 
> DEAN: Get me to Sam. We can stop this before it’s too late.
> 
> CASTIEL: I do that, we will all be hunted. We’ll all be killed.
> 
> DEAN: If there is anything worth dying for… this is it.

So please, tell me WHAT about Amara would appeal to Dean in a romantic way? SHE IS LITERALLY THE OPPOSITE OF EVERYTHING HE HAS EVER DESIRED IN THIS UNIVERSE. She is the anti-Free Will. She is Dean’s kryptonite. And he feels utterly powerless to resist the weird hold she seems to have over him. A hold he can’t explain or define or pinpoint so he can excise it like the Mark on his arm.

He’s confused, scared, and horrified of what her strange control over him might force him to do against his will. Will she snap her fingers and turn him into a mindless puppet compelled to do her bidding? He watched her poof three angels out of existence with a flick of her fingers. His knife shattered when he broke through her control enough to attack. He stood there enthralled (in the literal definition of  _thrall_ , i.e.  the state of being in someone’s power, the connotations of which are generally linked with words like  _evil, tyranny, and slave_ , ad definitely not the more romantic  _enthrall_  which usually means fascination, delight, and wonder. No, Dean is  _anything_  but delighted about what’s happening to him.)

So when Cas(ifer) uses the term “attraction” to describe it, Dean’s appalled. Not because of some secret sexy feelings he has for Amara, but because in the most scientific definition of the word attraction, Cas(ifer) hit the nail on the head. She is a force he doesn’t think he’ll be able to resist, just as he wasn’t able to resist the Mark’s influence over him. Which is why he was groping around for another word for it, one that shifted the “blame” from himself. He chose “connection,” which is more apt considering Amara described them as being “bound,” i.e. connected.

Not only does he admit to being scared of what this connection might mean for him, he is  _ashamed_  of it. He spent most of that conversation with Cas(ifer) AVOIDING EYE CONTACT. Dean’s body language was stiff and closed off, and for a guy who has spent the last eight years staring into Castiel’s eyes, suddenly he can barely meet them.

This is not a connection Dean wants. At all. He’s terrified of it in a way he wasn’t even afraid of what the Mark was doing to him. 

 

[spn 11.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.11) [spn s11 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-spoilers) [dean x amara is not endgame and it's being portrayed as creepybadwrong for reasons](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-x-amara-is-not-endgame-and-it%27s-being-portrayed-as-creepybadwrong-for-reasons) [dean/amara (i guess i should tag that but i only post stuff that disproves it so...)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean%2Famara-%28i-guess-i-should-tag-that-but-i-only-post-stuff-that-disproves-it-so...%29) [who is amara?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/who-is-amara%3F) [casifer? lustiel?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/casifer%3F-lustiel%3F) [Team Free Will](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Team-Free-Will) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN)

 

 

 

 

[Feb 1, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/138512264745/hey-mittens-im-not-sure-if-this-has-been-talked)

11 notes

**[keeperofcuriousthings](https://keeperofcuriousthings.tumblr.com/) asked: Hey Mittens. I'm not sure if this has been talked about, but what if Casifer is going to be forward with Dean, interpreting Cas' thoughts about Dean to be romantic, like we all joke about. The thing is, what if this is all a set-up to "give them what they want - in a way they don't expect it" - Kim Manners style? Like, it would be a cheap-ish shot at finding out how the GA will act towards DeanCas (not paying attention to vessel-consent-issues, as per usual). Dean and Cas would probably... 1/?**

> … need to talk about it, when Cas is himself again. Or then again, they could plausibly have them not-talk about it, because they have issues. I don’t know… Sorry to ramble in your askbox like this, but maybe you’d have thoughts about this? 2/2 

Hello! First of all, never be sorry about rambling in my askbox (and I mistyped that at first and had to stop to laugh for a minute).

Second of all, I don’t know that the show would spend much time exploring the personal nature of Dean and Cas(ifer)’s interactions. I just don’t think they  _have_  that much time to spend on it, seeing as Cas(ifer) isn’t in this week’s episode (but HOORAY WAYWARD DAUGHTERS!!!).

***I know almost NOTHING about 11.13 (which I only remembered came between Wayward Daughters this week and the sub episode THE WEEK AFTER, AND NOT NEXT WEEK! until AFTER I finished writing up this entire thing and was tagging it, so everything else in this post, other than the stuff between these little stars here, is me completely forgetting this episode exists. OOPSIE.

But other than the fact that from the title it is supposed to have something to do with LOVE, and has the tagline “Who do you love?” attached to it… yeah. It’s a mystery to me. According to [@ibelieveinthelittletreetopper](http://tmblr.co/mYr585tBoIyA87IGSmY2d0Q)‘s [spoiler sheet](http://ibelieveinthelittletreetopper.tumblr.com/post/122781295133/supernatural-season-11-spoiler-sheet), all we know is that it has something to do with a “kissing curse” that causes its victims to die, and that Misha was in Brazil during the filming of the episode, so likely won’t be in it at all. It could, however, lead to some Sam and Dean discussions about Love… and love, similar possibly to their conversation from 11.04, and building off their conversation about maybe retiring someday and Dean’s “follow your heart” advice from Mildred in 11.11… but that’s all 100% speculation and not based on anything more than the fact that all the subtext seems to be about love this year.***

NOW BACK TO THE REST OF THE POST I’D TYPED BEFORE I REMEMBERED THAT 11.13 WAS A THING THAT EXISTED…

and the following week many people suspect Lucifer is going to be outed… while Dean’s stuck back in the 1940′s on a submarine.

It looks like the beginning of the submarine episode will involve Dean and Cas(ifer) discussing the weapon Dean insists on being sent back in time to hunt down, but while Sam and Cas(ifer) are waiting back at the bunker, something happens and Sam figures out that Lucifer is possessing Cas.

Assuming the majority of the episode will revolve around Dean’s struggle to find the “Hand of God,” and subsequently get back to the present time, it looks like Sam’s going to be the one spending the most time with Lucifer (while he believes he’s spending time with Cas).

So in theory, if anyone’s going to have that sort of accidental in-depth FEELINGS talk with Lucifer, it’s going to be Sam. Not to say it couldn’t happen, but it’s possible that  _Sam_  would mention something to who he believes is Cas, maybe bring up Dean’s recent “vulnerability,” or ask Cas if he maybe Dean said anything to him about why the banshee targeted him (or about something resulting from the Wayward Daughters episode that causes Sam to worry about Dean, which we haven’t seen yet, so I’d have to wait to make any guesses on what that could be).

At any rate, Sam knows Dean talks to Cas about things that he isn’t comfortable mentioning to Sam himself. Sam bringing their relationship up in that fashion could potentially lead to Lucifer asking some pointed questions about Dean’s feelings for Castiel (based on Sam’s knowledge or observations, or whatever).

I won’t rule it out, but I just don’t think that Dean and Casifer are going to have much more onscreen time for a “personal moment” of that nature. And I’m kind of relieved about it. Because like you said, it’s fun to joke about, but the reality of the situation would likely be full of all kinds of consent issues, not to mention regret/anger/betrayal, etc.

I think we’ve had plenty of “give them what they want, just not how they expect it” this season with Lucifer in Castiel’s vessel… We wanted more Lucifer, we wanted more Castiel. SURPRISE! HAVE THEM BOTH IN ONE TIDY PACKAGE!

If anything, having Lucifer possibly hint at Castiel’s ~feelings~ towards Dean, but during a conversation with Sam instead of saying them directly to Dean would not only fit the structure of the next episode with Cas(ifer) spending most of the show alone with Sam and only a few minutes at the beginning (and possibly the end) with Dean, but it would eliminate most of the ickier aspects of forcing both Castiel and Dean into grey areas of consent.

I’ll keep the humorous (and probably Neko Atsume-related) Casifer/Dean feelings chats filed under spn crack. :)

 

[spn 11.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.11) [spn s11 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11-speculation) [spn 11.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.12) [spn 11.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.13) [spn 11.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.14) [casifer? lustiel?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/casifer%3F-lustiel%3F) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [no really how did I forget an entire episode even existed? *sigh*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/no-really-how-did-I-forget-an-entire-episode-even-existed%3F-%2Asigh%2A) [destiel if you glance out the corner of your eye at it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel-if-you-glance-out-the-corner-of-your-eye-at-it) [keeperofcuriosthings](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/keeperofcuriosthings)

 

 

 

 

[May 29, 2016](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/145107591365/i-just-really-want-ppl-to-remember-that-dean)

417 notes

**Anonymous asked: I just really want ppl to remember that Dean Winchester saw a married gay couple and assumed they were brothers. Because that literally is the pinnacle of love for him. Brotherly love means everything to him, and to him it's the closest type of love because that's been his strongest relationship so far. So he may have called Cas his brother, but he also did the same thing when he unintentionally tried to no-homo actual homos. Because that's the love he has experience with, knows, and recognizes.**

Yep. And when he was corrected, he had to sit back and start reevaluating.

He got it. But HE THEN HAD TO ASK WHAT IT WAS LIKE SETTLING DOWN WITH A HUNTER, BECAUSE HE HADN’T EVEN GOTTEN THAT FAR IN HIS OWN THOUGHT PROCESS ABOUT IT, DESPITE HAVING BEEN POKED AND PRODDED OVER IT SINCE 11.04!

Sorry, I’m not angry-yelling, i’m excite-yelling. :D

His primary goal all season was saving Cas. Dean’s only just now getting to a point where he can begin to refocus on WHY he felt as strongly as he did about saving Cas.

He’s never had anything stronger to compare that sort of relationship with, but EVERYTHING about s11 has positioned him to take another look at his feelings. And now that he’s admitted he loves chick flick moments, we’ll actually see him apply that chick flick logic to himself more in the future, and  _really_  think about who he’s been pining for all season. And WHY.

 

[spn 11.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.04) [spn 11.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.11) [spn 11.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.19) [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [spn s12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 


	117. Chapter 117

[Jun 26, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162281907605/do-you-only-like-destiel-or-are-there-other-ships)

228 notes

**[rionaofblue](http://rionaofblue.tumblr.com/) asked: Do you only like Destiel or are there other ships you enjoy?**

Eh, I like other ships just fine. I mean, I feel like other ships are a bit of fun, you know? I don’t mind reading about them in fic or whatever. But to me destiel hits me at an entirely different level.

I’ve read (and written) all sorts of side pairings in destiel fic, and have enjoyed them to one level or another. Sam and Eileen, Charlie and Gilda, Charlie and Dorothy, Jody and Sam (that’s adorable just for the ship name of “Jam” i mean COME ON!), Sam and Donna (heck I’ve even read some delightfully refreshing and adorable Dean/Donna). Jody and Donna, too. I mean, almost anything works for me on some level as a side pairing in fic.

But what knocks my interest in Destiel into the stratosphere is the fact that I can see all of this subtext, this slow build, happening in canon. It’s not just “hey these two guys look good together and have some chemistry.” It’s not just “wouldn’t that be fun” or some sort of dreamy what-if scenario that’s based on just smooshing two random good looking people together.

It’s the same reason that Sam/Eileen made me sit up and blink, open-mouthed, at the tv. The exact same tropes were used to pair Sam and Eileen in canon that were used between Dean and Cas. Even though we only had two full episodes with Eileen and Sam interacting, all the cues were built in to their interactions that had been given about 10 tons of narrative weight between Dean and Cas over the years. The parallels were enough to apply the same sort of romantic tension to Sam and Eileen’s interactions that I’ve been mentally applying to Dean and Cas’s interactions for NINE SEASONS.

That’s why I ship Destiel like nothing else.

No other ship, ever, has prompted me to seek out this sort of fandom involvement. I’m no spring chicken. Even when I first started watching SPN (I was an ancient and creaky 37), I was probably considered “old” for fandom. In all that time, I have never sought out the fandom for a show like this; not only looking for fanfic about a particular ship, but all the meta and the analysis of pretty much the entirety of canon. Really, SPN fascinates me on just about every level, even if a lot of that fascination comes back to my personal investment and interest in the relationship between Dean and Cas.

It’s not JUST that relationship that keeps me interested in the show and the fandom. The mythology of the show, the relationships between Sam, Dean, Cas, and ALL THE OTHER CHARACTERS, hunting and monsters, heaven and hell and purgatory and everything… it’s all fascinating to me.

It just so happens that the bit I’m most fascinated by is the part where the self-loathing human monster hunter who wears his heart on his sleeve has spent nine years growing to accept and believe in himself while a slightly broken angel with too much heart has spent the same nine years growing to reject the plans of Heaven to subjugate all of creation and to understand and completely love humanity… and that human monster hunter who wears his heart on his sleeve. 

*oh gosh I’m getting all choked up thinking about it while I’m sitting here watching 3.16 and knowing 4.01 is up next*

So no, I don’t really ship anything else the way I ship destiel. Other ships might be cute, or mildly interesting, but nothing else has ever engaged me the way these two idjits do. It’s a truly epic love story.

(final note: honestly for anyone who doesn’t understand why my destiel tag is “the scheherazade of supernatural,” read [this](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FScheherazade&t=YmMyZGJmMmNhMTk0ZGE2MzM3YTIzYWI2YmVmNjVkZTQyYTlmMzU0YSxrYzBxWXF1aQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F162281907605%2Fdo-you-only-like-destiel-or-are-there-other-ships&m=1).)

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [kajuned](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/kajuned)


	118. Chapter 118

[Jun 29, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162421399660/hi-when-do-you-think-the-writers-began-taking)

21 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi! When do you think the writers began taking destiel seriously? I love the earlier seasons Cas was in; i very much enjoyed watching the beginning stages of their bond. But I don't believe it became a serious, consistent part of the narrative until season 6, when the writers thought "hey, we might actually have something serious here." And it didn't start coming out of the strictly subtextual realm i personally believe until season 8.**

Hi! Sorry it took so long to reply, it’s been a weird busy day…

From the very start, the relationship (whether platonic or romantic) between Dean and Castiel could never be anything other than intensely important to both of them. I mean, you don’t pull a guy’s soul out of hell, rebuild his body and then leave your handprint burned into his shoulder on a lark. Regardless of how they potentially intended to write their interactions, that kinda put them in the Something Unexpectedly Profound box right from the start, no?

Dean may have been slightly overwhelmed by Cas for most of s4, but by the end he was comfortable enough to willingly show Cas some of his own vulnerability. He PRAYED to Cas for help when he felt overwhelmed in 4.18. Dean Winchester. Prayed.

And Cas… betrayed Heaven and his orders in order to offer Dean the help he asked for… even after being dragged back to heaven to be “reprogrammed” in 4.20. Dean talked him back around to the side of humanity.

That’s not something the writers were unaware of. That’s… a pretty intense friendship built on mutual trust and understanding, at the very least.

When did they start playing up a more obvious romantic tension? Yeah, probably during s6 (and it’s REALLY hard to look at 6.20 and not get even a little romantic tension there…). In trying to protect the Winchesters, Cas took the entire world upon his shoulders, and things just… spiraled out of his control so fast that by the time Dean learned the whole truth it was too late to abandon his doomed plan. Everyone had literally painted themselves into the worst of all possible “I did what I had to do” situations. BAD TIMES ALL AROUND FOR EVERYONE OW MY HEART.

But then s7 started with Cas apparently perma-dead. That gave us most of a season of brokenly pining Dean, but yikes…

Purgatory was probably the beginning of Dean and Cas being written more intentionally with romantic undertones, yeah, but heck they still had such a long way to go. A lot of that got derailed during the MoC arc to a certain extent (especially during the latter half of s10, which I won’t say anything more about lest I start screeching again).

But oh heck, s11 is where it really picks up again for me personally. Not just because we saw a lot of pining Dean, but because Cas’s PERSONAL emotional arc started up again (tunes up to screech about s10 again but refrains). We got the love and love triptych of episodes serving as the linchpin around which the entire season pivoted, and Dean going progressively more desperate to save Cas from Lucifer.

By s12, they’re married, so… :P

This is a weird place to stop typing, I know, but I’m out of words for now.

 

[the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	119. Chapter 119

[Jul 3, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162571050520/12-dean-and-sams-reactions-in-the-last-couple)

164 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 Dean and Sam's reactions in the last couple minutes of the finale interest me a lot. While they both emote, Dean almost immediately goes stone/blank faced and internalizes it. Goes back into soldier mode almost. Sam actually cries just a bit, and is more facially expressive. I think it goes back to their past roles that are hard to break. Dean has been taught to internalize, mostly for Sam's sake or b/c he saw it as his duty to keep the family functioning. This allowed Sam more freedom.**

2/2 HOWEVER it’s also a reversal at the same time! Sam immediately springs into action. Looks to Dean and then at Cas’s body one more time, but he is the one to continue on with the pressing matters at hand. And this is important, because Sam loved Mary and Cas too; they’re not trying to portray Sam as not feeling it as deeply as Dean. So why can Sam keep going and Dean can’t? When faced with the same scenario, why are their reactions different? *we just don’t know* bird gif.  
  


D:

Yeah, I mean it was a real emotional rollercoaster for a few minutes there. One second Sam and Dean are battling Lucifer in the AU, they watch Crowley complete the spell (and sacrifice himself to close the portal), and just as they think they’re about to make it out safely Cas goes barging past them toward Lucifer, Sam’s dragging Dean back through the portal, and Dean’s screaming out for Cas…

At that point, when Cas comes back through the portal, Dean can hardly believe it, he’s SO RELIEVED for just a second or two, and then… Lucifer gets Cas from behind and D: D: D:

I think it’s probably some sort of emotional overdose for Dean and he’s completely lost his ability To Can. He Could Not.

Dean immediately after Sam dragged him back through the portal, thinking Cas was still over there fighting Luci and the portal was about to close:

We don’t have a screencap of Dean’s reaction to Cas coming back through the portal right after this, but here, assume Dean was AT LEAST as pleased as Sam was here:

Then *terrible thing happens* and Dean’s face spends quite a bit of time in a variation of this:

And Sam’s like this:

Notice Dean’s looking down, at Cas, and Sam’s looking right at the Ongoing Source of Danger, Lucifer. Sam is clearly upset, I mean just looking at his face here makes me want to cry. But he isn’t so devastated that he’s going to take his eyes off Lucifer.

And Dean just… can’t. He can’t process what’s happened, even with Lucifer standing right there, it takes him longer to register that the danger is still happening. Even after Mary’s dragged into the portal and the rift seals shut behind her, Sam’s still shocked, but he looks around and sees the light in the house and knows they still have one more problem to handle… and even in this state ^^ he gets that there might still be danger nearby.

And he takes one glance down at Dean, and sees that Dean Is Not Coping with this, and after 34 years, it’s Sam’s turn to take care of things in the burning nursery, so to speak…

What was the question again? *scrolls up* AAH RIGHT. Why the difference in their reactions?

I guess it’ll forever remain a mystery. So vague. Much interpretation. Very ambiguity. Wow.

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [there i said it okay? not like everyone didn't get that](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/there-i-said-it-okay%3F-not-like-everyone-didn%27t-get-that) [i mean there are probably asteroids that can see it by now](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-there-are-probably-asteroids-that-can-see-it-by-now) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [THIS WAS A TERRIBLE THING TO WATCH FRAME BY FRAME TO PICK SCREENSHOTS OF](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/THIS-WAS-A-TERRIBLE-THING-TO-WATCH-FRAME-BY-FRAME-TO-PICK-SCREENSHOTS-OF) [I NEED TO HUG SAM AND DEAN AND PERSONALLY PLUCK MARY BACK THROUGH THE PORTAL](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/I-NEED-TO-HUG-SAM-AND-DEAN-AND-PERSONALLY-PLUCK-MARY-BACK-THROUGH-THE-PORTAL) [AND REVIVE CAS AND THEN SEND THEM ALL OUT FOR A NICE DINNER HOLY CRUD THAT HURTS](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/AND-REVIVE-CAS-AND-THEN-SEND-THEM-ALL-OUT-FOR-A-NICE-DINNER-HOLY-CRUD-THAT-HURTS) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	120. Chapter 120

[Jul 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162592704185/hello-i-would-like-to-discuss-501-please)

71 notes

Hello, I would like to discuss 5.01 please.

Specifically, what convinced God to resurrect Cas. Let’s start closer to the beginning of the episode, shall we? When Lucifer was released, our understanding is that God booped them onto that airplane (even though they wrongly suspect it was angels at first). So what’s the FIRST thing Sam and Dean decide to do with their newfound not-deadness?

**DEAN** : All right, well, first things first—How did we end up on Soul Plane?  
 **SAM** : Angels, maybe? I mean, you know, beaming us out of harm’s way?  
 **DEAN** : Well, whatever. It’s the least of our worries. We need to find Cas.

So they drive straight for the last place they saw Cas: Chuck’s house.

**DEAN** : Where’s Cas?  
 **CHUCK** : He’s dead. Or gone. The archangel smote the crap out of him. I’m sorry.  
 **DEAN** : You’re sure? I mean, maybe he just vanished into the light or something.  
 **CHUCK** : Oh, no. He, like, exploded. Like a water balloon of chunky soup.

The chat continues, but essentially, Chuck witnesses EVERYTHING that goes down next. Not that he probably hasn’t been watching everything that’s gone on in the Winchesters’ lives all along, because omniscience, but this time he’s standing  _right there_.

**DEAN** : Cas, you stupid bastard.  
 **SAM** : Stupid? He was trying to help us.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah, exactly.

(which is pretty much identical to Dean’s chat with Bobby right after Cas walks into the reservoir in 7.02, while he’s folding up Cas’s coat like a widow folding a flag:

[DEAN picks up CASTIEL’s trenchcoat, which had floated to the edge of the reservoir.]  
 **DEAN** : Okay. So he’s gone.  
 **BOBBY** : Yeah. Rest in peace. If that’s in the cards.  
[DEAN folds the trenchcoat and looks down at it sadly.]  
 **DEAN** : Dumb son of a bitch.  
 **BOBBY** : Well, he was friends with us, wasn’t he? Can’t get much dumber than that. Come on, those things will be coming up for air soon.

but back to 5.01 now)

Chuck warns them that the angels are coming, and Zachariah shows up with some henchmen. Despite the fact that Dean and Cas had JUST REBELLED against Zachariah’s plans in 4.22, and the fact that Cas was smote (probably by Raphael) for disobedience and Dean had just watched Chuck pull  _Cas’s tooth out of his own hair_ , DEAN STILL STANDS UNWAVERING UNDER ZACHARIAH’S ORDERS, even knowing how powerful the angels are.

In the span of one scene, Dean calls Zachariah and the angels “asshat,” “sons of bitches,” tells him to “Cram it with walnuts, ugly,” calls him “two-faced douche” and then “dicks.”

That’s a lot of insulting. Like, every time Dean opens his mouth, an angry insult flies out. That is A LOT of confidence for a measly mortal to show in the face of angels. But as we learn next, Dean did have an insurance policy he set up in anticipation of an angel showing up– the angel banishing sigil.

**DEAN** : Oh, yeah—a little insurance policy in case you dicks showed up.  
[DEAN slaps his bloody hand on an Angel Banishing Sigil drawn behind a door.]  
 **ZACHARIAH** : No!  
[SAM and CHUCK flinch. ZACHARIAH vanishes in white light. When DEAN looks, the other ANGELS are gone as well.]  
 **DEAN** : Learned that from my friend Cas, you son of a bitch.

The reaction shot goes to Chuck, who informs us all that “This sucks ass.”

Yet Chuck nudges Sam and Dean off on their road of discovery, where they encounter Zachariah and company again at the Castle Storage. Zach attempts to torture Sam and Dean into Dean agreeing to say yes to Michael, until Cas shows up and disrupts his fun.

**ZACHARIAH** : How are you…  
 **CASTIEL** : Alive? That’s a good question. How did these two end up on that airplane? Another good question. ‘Cause the angels didn’t do it. I think we both know the answer, don’t we?  
 **ZACHARIAH** : No. That’s not possible.  
 **CASTIEL** : It scares you. Well, it should. Now, put these boys back together and go. I won’t ask twice.

So an implied invocation of God here is enough to frighten Zachariah off, at least for now. Even though Cas’s powers have been severely limited now (he’s been “cut off from Heaven,” put in a situation where he’s forced to begin learning some of the limitations of humanity for himself, almost as if he’s being tested in some way, as if he’s being shown the potential of his own future, from the perspective of later canon through s12). And at the beginning of 5.02, he outright declares it:

**CASTIEL** : Your plan to kill Lucifer.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah. You want to help?  
 **CASTIEL** : No. It’s foolish. It can’t be done.  
 **DEAN** : Oh. Thanks for the support.  
 **CASTIEL** : But I believe I have the solution. There is someone besides Michael strong enough to take on Lucifer. Strong enough to stop the apocalypse.  
 **SAM** : Who’s that?  
 **CASTIEL** : The one who resurrected me and put you on that airplane. The one who began everything. God.  
[SAM and DEAN look skeptical.]  
 **CASTIEL** : I’m gonna find God.

So Chuck brought Cas back because Dean (in his Dean way) had faith in Cas, but Chuck spends most of s5 trying to convince Cas that HIS faith should in return lie in DEAN, and not in Heaven or God.

(is now eagerly awaiting the s13 rendition of the themes of 5.16, 5.17, 5.18… heck the rest of s5, which were addressed specifically by Chuck in late s11, but still needs to come home to Cas personally)

So yes, I am saying that Chuck resurrected Cas that first time  _for Dean specifically_. Not only because Cas CHOSE the side of humanity in 4.22 and defied destiny because Dean asked him to help save the world, but because even after all that, Dean kept fighting, even invoking Cas’s name in defiance of the next bit of destiny the angels wanted to drag him off to… Even back then, Chuck realized that Cas had chosen his side, even if it took Cas years to understand the fact himself.

 

[s12 hellatus rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-hellatus-rewatch) [spn 5.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.01) [spn 5.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.02) [spn s5](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s5) [spn 7.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.02) [spn 11.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.20) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [if you say 'mysterious ways' so help me i will kick your ass](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-you-say-%27mysterious-ways%27-so-help-me-i-will-kick-your-ass) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [all my tags for zachariah somehow involve the fact that dean stabbed him in the face pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/all-my-tags-for-zachariah-somehow-involve-the-fact-that-dean-stabbed-him-in-the-face-pffft)


	121. Chapter 121

[Jul 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162595804980/rewatching-503-now-and-everything-is-fine)

40 notes

rewatching 5.03 now and everything is fine*

*everything is not fine

**DEAN** : What’s that?  
 **CASTIEL** : It’s oil. It’s very special. Very rare.  
 **DEAN** : Okay, so we trap Raphael with a nice vinaigrette?  
 **CASTIEL** : No.  
 **DEAN** : So this ritual of yours, when does it got to go down?  
 **CASTIEL** : Sunrise.

(mittens pauses the tv to flail about sunrises and cas)

**DEAN** : Tell me something. You keep saying we’re gonna trap this guy. Isn’t that kinda like trapping a hurricane with a butterfly net?  
 **CASTIEL** : No, it’s harder.  
 **DEAN** : Do we have any chance of surviving this?  
 **CASTIEL** : You do.  
 **DEAN** : So odds are you’re a dead man tomorrow.  
 **CASTIEL** : Yes.  
 **DEAN** : Well. Last night on earth. What are your plans?  
 **CASTIEL** : I just thought I’d sit here quietly.

(pauses again to flail about the last night on earth speech, dean’s self-proclaimed “best line”)

but also:

**DEAN** : Daddy ran away and disappeared. He didn’t happen to work for the post office, did He?  
 **RAPHAEL** : This is funny to you? You’re living in a godless universe.  
 **DEAN** : And? What, you and the other kids just decided to throw an apocalypse while He was gone?  
 **RAPHAEL** : We’re tired. We just want it to be over. We just want…paradise.  
 **DEAN** : So, what, God dies and makes you the boss and you decide you can do whatever you want?  
 **RAPHAEL** : Yes. And whatever we want, we get.

The first line there is Dean’s new private inside joke with Cas. Raphael had no reason to know about how much fun Dean had been having with Cas over that line the night before. Only Cas would understand the humor in that statement, which Raphael confirms in the next line.

And then Raphael reaffirms what the angels wanted, why they started the apocalypse in the first place. A line later reaffirmed by Gabriel, Michael, and Lucifer, and then given as the reason Raphael wanted to restart the apocalypse in s6. They tried doing it the “destined” way before 5.22, but those pesky humans refused to play their roles. Cas inadvertently plays right into Raphael’s plan to leave the humans out of it this time, and leave it all up to the angels.

Dean’s last line there sounds devastatingly familiar to what he tells Cas at the end of 6.20–   _Just because you can do what you want doesn’t mean that you get to do whatever you want!_

Raphael’s last line there is taunting the narrative, because of course he can’t get whatever he wants. Especially when what he wants is “paradise.” Because in Supernatural, invoking “paradise” is the in-text equivalent of Dean telling Sam they’re in a real funky town in 2.10 when Gordon is holding him at gunpoint in order to alert Sam to the fact that it’s a trap, or invoking the name Poughkeepsie in 9.10 and again in 9.21 as a code word to drop everything and run. “Paradise,” to anyone who’s paying attention, should set off the gut instinct Kill Bill Siren.

 

[s12 hellatus rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-hellatus-rewatch) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [spn 5.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.03) [spn 6.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.03) [spn 6.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.20)[spn 2.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.10) [spn 9.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.21) [spn 9.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.10) [spn 5.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.22)


	122. Chapter 122

my comments on this post: http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162633577050/dean-calling-for-help

 

I still think part of the reason Dean continues to couch his “wants” as “needs” regarding Cas is because no matter how often in the last couple of years that WE’VE seen Dean going out of his mind when Cas has been in trouble (the back half of s11 after he said yes to Lucifer, the middle bit of s12 when he kept leaving to search for Kelly and Dagon, and then disappeared entirely to heaven without a word for  _weeks_  while Dean had no proof that Cas hadn’t already been booped out of existence by Dagon… even after Dean explained that he wasn’t angry about this but  _worried_  in 12.10). Cas hasn’t really seen this aspect of Dean for himself. All he sees is the stuff Tink mentioned ^^.

So of course Dean is afraid to REALLY put himself out there. If the idea that Dean’s worried about him isn’t enough to get Cas to reply to a freaking text message or voice mail, how much worse would it be for Dean to tell Cas he just needs (wants) him to stick around because  _he wants him to stick around_ , and then have Cas disappear again anyway?

So Dean “Abandonment Issues” Winchester says the “safe” thing. He knows Cas needs to feel useful, to feel like he has a purpose, so in Dean’s logic, he’s at least trying to offer Cas  _that_. 

But while Dean does get Cas’s reasons for running off and trying to fix what he believes are his own mistakes, he hasn’t really shared what he’s going through  _with Dean_. And every time Dean’s started this conversation with Cas about being family (like in 11.23), Cas hasn’t exactly seemed enthused with the idea. The Beer Run conversation always felt to me like Dean sort of easing in to it, testing the waters (and like Lizbob said, it was the end of the world, there were valid reasons for holding off on Major Life-Altering Confessions there). But then he was saved by the bell (or Sam’s phone call) from having to say anything more.

Miscommunication, on both sides. It’s not just Dean’s fault for not being emotionally honest here. It takes two to not-tango…

And Cas and Crowley (alongside all the other parallels between them this season), by the end of s12 they were both trying to fix the same mistake– Cas having said yes to Lucifer in 11.10 and becoming his vessel, and Crowley having hijacked Lucifer in 12.08 and shoving him into his own vessel. They both thought they could use Lucifer for their own ends, and they were both (in the end) proven wrong. Hubris is a terrible thing.

While Dean did include Crowley (sometimes) on the list of people he had faith in, it’s a little more situational than it is with Cas. He wants Cas around on general principle. Now he just needs to convey that to Cas…

 

 

[the beer run](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-beer-run) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [worst ship on the show](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/worst-ship-on-the-show) [spn 9.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.23) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [spn 12.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.08) [spn 11.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.10) [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23)


	123. Chapter 123

[Jul 10, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162831875565/i-think-the-thing-that-finally-made-me-start)

51 notes

**Anonymous asked: I think the thing that finally made me start really shipping destiel and seeing it as something the show is actually doing (as opposed to me just "reading too much into things" or seeing what i want to see) was not necessarily Dean and Cas's interactions. It was the way the show continued and still continues to narratively compare them to other romantic couples. My own interpretations are great and valid of course, but I like to look at narrative structure as much as possible too.**

(cont) Because that’s something that’s harder to say we just made up or are reading too much into, y'know? Like Dean seeing Cas on the side of the road in season 8 like Sam did with Jessica. The Sam/Jessica parallel in 12.23 as they were leaving the AU. And of course many other examples. Those are very concrete things.  
  


Hi there! And yeah, those are all very concrete things that individually might be written off as flukes, or as coincidences. But they don’t exist in a vacuum. If there was only one or two instances of these sorts of parallels it would be easy to dismiss them. Or if it were consistently presented as some sort of joke, or obvious misdirect. Or if it were explicitly negated in canon by words or actions.

But none of those is the case. Instead there is an ever-increasing mountain of parallels and references.

The fact that anyone is even arguing over what it all might mean, or that anyone doubts they are actually implying what we see they are implying, or that anyone feels the need to deconstruct every last one of these parallels and mirrors…

I mean, honestly, at what point does it begin to look idiotic to attempt to explain ALL of this away?

And what’s the excuse for suggesting that this mountain of stuff is anything other than exactly what it looks like?

 

[the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [i stopped myself from typing mid-thought here but i'm trusting the reader to extrapolate my meaning here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-stopped-myself-from-typing-mid-thought-here-but-i%27m-trusting-the-reader-to-extrapolate-my-meaning-here) [just like the show is doing](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/just-like-the-show-is-doing)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	124. Chapter 124

[Jul 11, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162865830300/this-probably-sounds-petty-and-whiny-but-im)

34 notes

**Anonymous asked: This probably sounds petty and whiny, but i'm really glad we got those few minutes among the chaos of the finale of focusing on Dean's reaction to just Cas. Seemed like in the past, there was always something else going on too so it was like "yeah Cas died or is hurt but there's also this other thing Dean is upset about so it's not just Cas." Like they were afraid to let something regarding Dean's emotions be just about Cas. They seem to be getting better about letting that happen though.**

Yeah, I mean we have had Dean’s reaction to Cas’s loss in the past, MULTIPLE times.

  * in 5.01 when Chuck described Cas blowing up and pulled a molar out of his hair just in case it was unclear just how blown up Cas had been, but they had much bigger immediate problems to face– like the threat of angels showing up in the kitchen and demanding their service, and the fact that Lucifer was now free and walking the earth… kinda trumps the ability to take a moment for reflection…
  * in 5.22 when Cas blew up again, sacrificing himself so Dean could have a few minutes to talk with Sam and try to break through Lucifer’s possession… it would’ve been disgraceful to Cas’s sacrifice for Dean to collapse and fail to save the world there, you know? But then Cas came back…
  * in 7.01, Dean was on a rocky roller coaster of an emotional nightmare. He thought he had Cas back for a minute or two, then lost him to the Leviathans, and then watched him detonate in a lake… but standing around being sad wasn’t an option so he picked up Cas’s coat and carried it around with him for months until Cas miraculously returned. S7 slowly took away every last good thing in Dean’s life. Cas was only the first in a long series, but he certainly wasn’t the  _least_. Even by 7.09 he’s still listing Cas as one of the major reasons for his mental state (Cas and “black goo” were the two things he listed as his biggest problems while drugged up on TDK slammer goo). Most of s7 was a long pinefest for Dean, and he repeatedly made it clear that it was at least partly about Cas.
  * 8.01, Cas wasn’t technically dead, but he was lost to him in Purgatory. We watched Dean tear Purgatory up searching for Cas, refusing to leave without him, even when he was handed the keys to the exit door. He chose to stay in Monsterland to find Cas and bring him home.
  * 9.01, praying to Cas after the angel fall event, unsure whether Cas had survived or what state he might be in. He prayed TO CAS for support for himself, he prayed a general prayer to anyone else for help on Sam’s behalf.



And now, despite Mary being trapped in that War World with Lucifer, despite the brand new baby nephilim in the house behind him, Cas has died and Dean… just doesn’t seem to care about those other Major Concerns at the moment. He didn’t grit his teeth and run after Sam to face Jack. He dropped to his knees by Cas’s side, unable to even care about what was going on in the house.

And we get FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS to ponder that shot, to let it sink in. To absorb the extent of Dean’s loss and the groundbreaking significance of him kneeling there in the sand while an Unknown Potential Bad Thing was still happening just a few yards away.

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	125. Chapter 125

#  [A tragedy from the human perspective](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162946850150/a-tragedy-from-the-human-perspective)

[Jul 13, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162946850150/a-tragedy-from-the-human-perspective)

32 notes

AN: I think I have written this meta before. I might possible write this meta again. I just die a little inside any time I see s6 being referred back to as part of some long-running romantic plotline. Like Romeo and Juliet, s6 isn’t a romance. It’s a tragedy. Calling it anything else is missing the entire point.

I really want to write long meta on s6. S6 is currently killing me with the following narrative thread:

**EVERYBODY LIES** except Dean, who we essentially become the Human Lie Detector. It’s been an undercurrent of the entire season so far, starting way back in 6.01 when he was poisoned by the djinn  _twice_. By the time he gets his feet back under him and recovers from the shock of learning that EVERYBODY had been lying to him  _for the entire goddamn year_  leading up to those events– about Sam having been alive all that time, about Cas and what he’d been up to in Heaven, about Bobby having nown all along that Sam was back, about the real reason Cas hadn’t been responding to ANY of Dean’s prayers that weren’t directly potentially helpful to tracking down the Heaven Weapons…

By the time 6.06 rolls around where Dean is at the absolute end of his rope, the episode is called “You Can’t Handle the Truth,” and he sorta can’t… but it’s a hell of a lot better than all the goddamn lies.

We may not learn the whole truth from Cas until 6.20, about what was happening in Heaven, his deal with Crowley, how his avoidance of Dean all season long was rooted in hiding the truth from him for  _nearly two years_ by that point. But that only makes Cas’s ongoing betrayal and deception even harder for Dean to accept in the end. That’s what finally crushes him and sends him off the rails.

Suddenly the depth and extent of Cas’s betrayal becomes clear, and Dean’s season-long frustration in dealing with Cas, having been manipulated and used by Crowley and the Campbells, the lies about Crowley eventually returning Sam’s soul if the Winchesters worked for him capturing the Alphas, Cas’s refusal to tell them any more of the details of what he was going through, his abject avoidance of them aside from the few times he was either manipulated into helping them or needed their help (such as Sam’s threat to him in 6.10, such as Cas seeking refuge at Bobby’s during 6.18 after he’d been wounded and in turn killed Rachel, and their subsequent mission in 6.19 to capture Eve), ALL becomes clear to Dean.

Dean is hit with the total weight of ALL of this in 6.20, and it’s driven home like an iron spike in 6.21. Cas had been lying to him, using him, and betraying him for nearly TWO YEARS, all the while Dean had been willing to trust Cas.

Yes, Cas had been doing all of that because of a misguided wish to keep Dean safe, to keep him out of the problems in Heaven, to give Dean the peace and his chance at happiness that he was FURIOUS at Bobby and Sam over in 6.01:

**Bobby** : Because you got out, Dean! You walked away from the life. And I was so damn grateful, you got no idea.  
 **Dean** : Do you have any clue what walking away meant for me?  
 **Bobby** : Yeah – a woman and a kid and not getting your guts ripped out at age 30. That’s what it meant.  
 **Dean** : That woman and that kid – I went to them because you asked me to.  
 **Bobby** : Good.  
 **Dean** : Good for who? I showed up on their doorstep half out of my head with grief. God knows why they even let me in. I drank too much. I had nightmares. I looked everywhere. I collected hundreds of books, trying to find anything to bust you out.  
 **Sam** : You promised you’d leave it alone.  
 **Dean** : Of course I didn’t leave it alone! Sue me! A damn year? You couldn’t put me out of my misery?  
 **Bobby** : Look, I get it wasn’t easy. But that’s life! And it’s as close to happiness as I’ve ever seen a hunter get. It ain’t like I wanted to lie to you, son. But you were out, Dean.  
 **Dean** : Do I look out to you?

and

**Dean** : I should’ve known. I should’ve known that if I stayed with you that something would come, because something always does. But I was stupid and reckless and…You can’t outrun your past.  
 **Lisa** : You’re saying goodbye.  
 **Dean** : I’m saying I’m sorry… For everything. Everything.

(and hello there s11-s12 tagline, “You can’t outrun your past.”)

THIS is why Dean refused to stand down when Cas asked him to in 6.21. The weight of this much betrayal was impossible to get past, because EVERY TERRIBLE THING that had happened to Dean in the two years prior was, in the immediate aftermath of learning the whole truth, directly the result of Cas hiding this truth from him.

Sam being returned soulless, the family betrayal of the Campbells, their deal with Crowley, hunting the alphas and rousing Monsterkind to fight back and eventually resurrect Eve from Purgatory and running her horrifying monster experiments on entire populations of innocent humans, the Heavenly Weapons interfering with humanity, Dean having been turned into a vampire (and luckily cured) but having threatened/frightened/come real close to accidentally harming Ben and Lisa, Ben and Lisa being kidnapped by demons, Lisa being possessed and nearly killed by one of those demons, that whole mess with the Titanic and that world where they were actors. Fucking  _dragons_. I mean, ALL of that could be traced back to that moment when Cas turned away from Dean and bought into Crowley’s plan to steal the souls of Purgatory in history’s most ill-advised power grab.

Way back in 6.07, when Cas first discovers Sam was resurrected with no soul, he could’ve come clean to Dean right then, but he was already in too deep with his plans with Crowley. Heck he could’ve come clean in 6.03 when we first see him this season. But even then he was already in too deep.

ALL of this could’ve been avoided if Cas had just… told Dean the truth from the start.

That’s… an awful lot of betrayal to get past, especially when the narrative not only proved out the reasons Cas had been keeping this secret, i.e. he knew he was in the wrong:

**BALTHAZAR** : Are you in flagrante with the King of Hades?  
 **CASTIEL** : Of course not.  
 **BALTHAZAR** : (laughs) Always were such a terrible liar. So it’s true. Alright then, why?  
 **CASTIEL** : It’s a means to an end. Balthazar, you understand that.  
 **BALTHAZAR** : Oh, absolutely. But what’s the end here exactly? You know, raid Purgatory, snatch up all the souls?  
 **CASTIEL** : Win the war.  
 **BALTHAZAR** : And I can only assume that you’d be the vessel, correct? Suck up all those souls into yourself? All that power?  
 **CASTIEL** : It’s the only way.  
 **BALTHAZAR** : Or too much juice for you, in which case you explode, taking a substantial chunk of the planet along with you.  
 **CASTIEL** : That won’t happen.  
 **BALTHAZAR** : Sure, sure. Of course. (scoffs) Just - just tell me that it’s entirely risk-free.  
 **CASTIEL** : I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you, but I need to know. Are you with me or not?  
 **BALTHAZAR** : (chuckles) Ah. You know, you may be certifiable, but fine. In for a penny, in for a pound.  
 **CASTIEL** : How’d you hear about this anyway?  
 **BALTHAZAR** : Oh, your howler monkeys of course. See they’re just a touch worked up about that kidnapping business, you know?

(quick aside to mention the similarity between that Soul Power Grab and Dean becoming the Soul Bomb in 11.23– but at least Dean NEGOTIATED a truce and had God on hand to defuse him before he went nuclear. Cas, despite his pleas to God, didn’t have that luxury. All he had was the “sign” sent by God– Dean telling him to just  _stop_. Too bad he didn’t listen.)

He didn’t even tell Balthazar, in theory his right-hand man throughout s6. Even BALTHAZAR knew this was a terrible idea, which is why he was ready to “betray” Cas to Sam and Dean:

**BALTHAZAR** : Well, we need to talk.  
 **SAM** : Why?  
 **BALTHAZAR** : Because - I know I’m gonna live to regret this - but I’m officially on your team. You bastards.  
 **DEAN** : And we should believe you why?  
 **BALTHAZAR** : Would you believe I had a shred of decency?  
 **SAM** : No.  
 **BALTHAZAR** : Oh. That hurts. (Sam raises his eyebrows.) Okay, you’re right. It’s survival. You see, I asked Cas some questions and I disliked his answers. He seems awfully sure of himself for a man who wants to swallow a million nuclear reactors. I mean, these things can get a bit Chernobyl, you know? So, voilà. Consider me your double agent. Oh, and I took the liberty of searching for your friends. Uh, took a while. Crowley’s a clever one.

Balthazar ends up with an angel blade in his back for his trouble. I MEAN. O_O

But at least he got the warning out to Sam and Dean what the likely consequences of Cas going through with his plan would mean. “These things can get a bit Chernobyl, you know?” THAT’S NOT A RINGING ENDORSEMENT FOR CAS’S SHADY BEHAVIOR.

When even the other ANGELS are telling you that Cas’s plan has a fatal flaw that he’s in too deep to see for himself, it starts to become too much to just let any of this slide. Dean refusing to stand down and let Cas pull such a risky move wasn’t entirely based on his own feelings, but on the very real knowledge from a concerned third party that what Cas was planning was potentially as catastrophic for the planet as letting Raphael restart the apocalypse.

Possibly the WORST parallel is between Cas in 6.20-6.22 and Soulless!Sam in 6.07-6.11. Because the show was giving us DIRECT PARALLELS between the sorts of betrayals Soulless!Sam perpetrated, up to and including  _trying to murder Bobby to prevent his soul from being returned to him in 6.11_. The whole “I can’t care about that” and the admission that this is what circumstance had driven them both to,  _and they were both irrevocably WRONG in those non-choices_.

Cas chose the wrong path after 5.22, s6 vilified him for it, and then murdered him for it. To say otherwise does his character the worst kind of denialist disservice.

Just tell me this doesn’t exactly mirror Dean’s conversations with Cas later in s6:

(from 6.07):

**Sam** : You weren’t supposed to know about that.  
 **Dean** : Know what?  
 **Sam** : It’s just something Samuel’s been doing. Catching things, taking them somewhere, grilling them for info.  
 **Dean** : Grill. Torture, right? And not telling me – that was his idea?  
 **Sam** : No, it was mine.  
 **Dean** : Why?  
 **Sam** : Honestly? ‘Cause you’d mess it up. You shoot first, ask questions later, and we needed to ask questions.  
 **Dean** : You know, I-I don’t care if you’ve got soullessness or the freakin’ mumps, man – You know better than this! Do you even want your soul back?  
 **Sam** : How does that have anything to do –  
 **Dean** : Have you been to the place where Samuel takes them? I mean, have you been in on these interrogations?  
 **Sam** : No, but I hear –  
 **Dean** : And why? And did it ever occur to you that this is really shady?  
 **Sam** : He’s our grandfather.  
 **Dean** : Yeah. Yeah, a guy who talks a great game. But you can’t assume that family means the same thing to him as it does to us. He’s not Dad. Wow. You don’t see it, do you?  
 **Sam** : What?  
 **Dean** : You’ve got no instinct. [Scoffs] I mean, you are seriously messed up.  
 **Sam** : Thanks.  
 **Dean** : I’m not kidding, man. Nobody’s forcing you to work with me, okay? But if we do this… I drive the bus, I call the shots, and you tell me everything, whether you think it’s important or not, because – trust me – you can’t tell the difference. Or, you know what, go – go with Samuel. See how that goes. It’s up to you.

ALL of s6 was a tragedy from the human perspective.

 

[spn s6](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s6) [spn 6.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.01) [spn 6.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.06) [spn 6.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.18) [spn 6.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.19) [spn 6.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.20) [spn 6.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.21) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [you can't outrun your past](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/you-can%27t-outrun-your-past) [we don't talk about season six](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/we-don%27t-talk-about-season-six) [BUT WE REALLY SHOULD TALK ABOUT SEASON SIX](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/BUT-WE-REALLY-SHOULD-TALK-ABOUT-SEASON-SIX) [honestly one of the most misunderstood seasons of the whole damn series and it gets mischaracterized so often I can't stand it :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/honestly-one-of-the-most-misunderstood-seasons-of-the-whole-damn-series-and-it-gets-mischaracterized-so-often-I-can%27t-stand-it-%3AP) [i will probably never stop talking about season six](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-will-probably-never-stop-talking-about-season-six)


	126. Chapter 126

[Jul 14, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162994375790/do-you-think-cass-has-recognized-and-accepted-his)

41 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think Cass has recognized and accepted his feelings for Dean? Because I think Dean has long since recognized what he feels for Cass, but has just been shoving it down and not accepting it. I think he was close to getting there when The Thing at the end of the finale happened, and i'm interested to see how those events influence that. GAH, i'm just so excited to see how all this plays out as far as Dean's emotional arc goes!**

Same. I mean, Cas did say I love you, so I think he gets that. I think Dean gets it too, but he hasn’t had a chance to really accept it. I mean, think of the circumstances of s12…

As soon as Dean and Cas are reunited in 12.01, Dean’s also dealing with Mary being back all of a sudden, AND Sam having been kidnapped. Dean is freaking out in multiple directions.

Once they get Sam back, Dean just begins to think the four of them will be able to settle in as a family when Cas is suddenly rushing out to hunt down Lucifer (after promising to call Dean for help when he finds him), and then Mary’s leaving because she can’t handle everything…

Cas is nearly killed when they finally catch up to Lucifer, and then Sam and Dean are arrested and shuttled off to a top secret prison, which they only escape by making A Terrible Bargain with Billie.

Cas kills Billie, potentially incurring some Cosmic Consequences, and Dean’s simultaneously miffed and grateful that Cas would risk himself like that for them. He’s not angry, he’s  _worried_.

All through this time, every interaction between Dean and Cas earns #married status.

Then we have Lily Sunder, Ishim, Cas’s past, Cas nearly dying  _again_. And then he comes even CLOSER to dying in 12.12 (and we get that I love you from Cas, which Dean can’t accept for a lot of reasons… Cas was only there because Dean asked him to be, but also Cas is only telling him this now that he believes he’s going to die, but ALSO Dean is feeling pretty crap about himself and exactly how he was responsible for “changing” Cas, because Dean’s still not sure that change was a good thing, you know?)

Just when Dean happily suggests they all go home, Cas disappears  _again_ , in the search for Kelly Kline and Dagon… and he’s not mad, he’s freaking TERRIFIED. Because the last Prince of Hell they dealt with nearly KILLED Cas, and Dagon HAS killed multiple other angels. And then Cas stops returning his calls…

When they’re finally reunited in 12.19, Cas tries to return his mix tape, and I think that broke Dean’s heart. But they did talk, a little bit. Dean’s still hurt, but he’s relieved that Cas is back home again… until he’s suddenly feeling very used when Cas leaves  _yet again_. With the Colt.

They catch up again, and he’s just about got Cas talked around to coming home again when Kelly gets “Jacked” into stealing the Impala, and then Jacks Cas into running off again.

Dean is FREAKING CONCERNED. That wasn’t his Cas. This was something different.

So when they’re reunited AGAIN in 12.23, and then The Terrible Thing happens, it just about breaks Dean in half.

Why did I type all of this out. This is all terrible. If he doesn’t get how important Cas is to him, I’d have to say he’s a flipping moron.

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	127. Chapter 127

[Jul 14, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162998054940/12-ie-dean-recognizing-feelings-for-cass)

49 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 (i.e. Dean recognizing feelings for Cass) AGREE!! Because Dean is not an idiot when it comes to emotions, despite the front he put on for years. He's actually a deeply emotional and intuitive person, more so than Sam in some ways. So i'd be VERY surprised it Dean hasn't figured out his own feelings for Cass. And honestly i think Cass has too, and their emotional obstacles now are things like "it could never happen" "he doesn't feel the same" etc.**

2/2 Plus, I think especially if Cas takes a bit to come back and/or doesn’t come back totally right, it’ll really push Dean to realize that he can’t just keep expecting Cas to come back every time, and if he wants a shot at happiness, he needs to take action to do that as opposed to continuing to do the post-death bittersweet “what could’ve been” inner turmoil he usually does. A few years ago it would’ve been doom and gloom, but the way the show’s going now, i think good things are being set up.  


(re: [this](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/162994375790/do-you-think-cass-has-recognized-and-accepted-his), i assume)

Yeah, and I mean, he’s pretty close to that line already, where he’s realizing that Cas might NOT always come back, and he might not always be able to come back…

Not just because of death, but he was bumping up against that fact in 12.20, also:

**DEAN** : What the hell man? What about Cas?  
**SAM** : Dude, Cas ditched his cell phone. Look, Jody put an APB out for Cas and Kelly across three states.  
[Dean still looks unhappy about how things are going.]  
**SAM** : Until that shakes something loose or we get some other break, all we’re doing is – is sitting here, banging our heads against a brick wall. Let’s get out there.

And really, he was at that point BEFORE that point. In 12.18 we see the extent Dean’s gone to in order to try and find Cas:

**DEAN** : Come on. Cas, it’s me. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days. I don’t know what’s going on, but we got a line on Dagon…And we got our asses handed to us, even with the Colt. So…Could really use the backup. Call me back.  
**SAM** : So no luck with Cas, huh?  
**DEAN** :Yeah, still AWOL.  
**SAM** : All right, so let’s find him.  
**DEAN** : I’ve been trying, Sam. The GPS on his phone is turned off, and there’s nothing in the system about some weird guy in a trench coat getting arrested or turning up dead.  
**SAM** : Right. Dean, it’s Cas. I mean, this isn’t the first time he’s dropped off the map, you know? And whatever’s happening, he’ll be fine. He always is.  
**DEAN** : Yeah.  
[Dean is unconvinced and continues cleaning his guns.]

He’s been checking police reports and *gulp*  _morgues_. He’s not mad, he’s worried. By the time the Great Bad Thing happens in 12.23, Dean’s been low-level experiencing this sort of worry for Cas since he left to hunt down Lucifer in 12.03.

And yeah, we need to see Dean do something DIFFERENT now, because we had the “post-death doom and gloom” from him before. It’s called Season 7.

 

 

[spn s12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s12) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	128. Chapter 128

[Jul 15, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163023523870/i-dont-really-like-s6-dean-despite-being-right)

250 notes

**Anonymous asked: I don't really like S6 Dean. Despite being right most of the time, he didn't take the time to understand people's motives and was quick to issue ultimatums (cough cough Cas). He was very demanding of others - Sam, Bobby, Cas. I loved soulless!Sam, though. Can I ask for your thoughts/links?**

Hi! And yeah, I think this is one of the difficulties with s6. Nearly the entire season is presented from Dean’s pov, with the exceptions of 6.04 (from Bobby’s pov) and 6.20 (from Cas’s pov). We get a rare few glimpses through anyone else’s eyes for the entire season, and it’s sometimes easy to forget that when we’re being told the story from Dean’s pov specifically  _we are supposed to feel his frustration and anger and desperation and betrayal_. Instead I find that people sublimate those feelings, and instead of directing them outward at ~all the shit that put Dean in a place to feel that way~, viewers direct it back AT DEAN HIMSELF, rather than feeling it from Dean’s pov, simply because it’s freaking difficult to internalize that as the main pov of most of the season.

In turn, we find ourselves in Dean’s typical position, of sublimating those negative feelings. *insert that gif from 12.05 of Dean telling Sam that sublimation is kinda his thing…*

I’ve been blarghing in Lizbob’s direction for the last few days about early s6, and she helped me work through this, so the following is loosely cobbled together from that chat. It’s about half me, half lizbob, edited to look coherent. Hopefully. :P

Dean WAS right about nearly everything in s6. Tragically so. Similar to how he was proved right throughout s4 when we previously saw Sam “compromised” by a supernatural influence. He was desperately trying to save all the people he loved from horrifying fates, and they weren’t LISTENING. In s6 it took him six episodes to convince Bobby to help him figure out what was wrong with Sam, because even Bobby didn’t trust him after hiding Sam’s ~aliveness~ FOR A DAMN YEAR from Dean

So it’s not like Dean was in a mood to be patient with people lying to him, keeping secrets from him, or working behind his back, right from the start of s6. In 6x04 Dean reaches out for help but from BOBBY’s POV it’s the last straw on him being needy. So Bobby, Sam and Cas all shut him down pretty quickly.

And Samuel thinks he’s a sissy (Lizbob’s line there <–), but so do the rest of the Campbells, who Sam has been hunting with  _for a year_.

Bobby did have his whole soul issue, but honestly A WHOLE FREAKING YEAR. He’d known Sam was alive, known that he’d been hunting with the Campbells, known that he’d suddenly and mysteriously returned from Hell with no explanation, and had become Robohunter  _and that Sam didn’t want Bobby to tell Dean that he was alive and back from Hell_.

Like, how much more personally betrayed is it possible for Dean to feel? That Bobby would keep Sam’s resurrection from him when Bobby knew how much Sam meant to Dean. I mean, just a few years earlier  _Dean sold his soul to bring Sam back from the dead, and then went to Hell for it himself_. Bobby HAD to know what Sam’s “death” in 5.22 was doing to Dean,  _and he still chose to hide Sam’s not-deadness from Dean FOR A YEAR because he promised Sam he would._

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

So he’s left with what, exactly? The car, and a dwindling and broken relationship with Lisa, BECAUSE of everyone stumbling back into his life in 6.01. Even after Dean started hunting again, Sam still went his own way, did his own thing. Only after 6.03 Did Sam even agree to get back in the Impala with Dean, and only then because his other car had been wrecked when a couple of fighting angels squashed it.

Then there’s all the stuff that was a direct result of Sam’s being soulless. If Sam hadn’t been soulless Dean wouldn’t have been turned into a vampire and not done that to Lisa and Ben, like just for example.

Everyone is SO ANGRY in season 6. And Dean is this lost confused puppy who was just getting over a massive breakdown, and making a small boring safe life. And then every single root cause of his trauma is back within a week. No wonder he’s getting snappy after a while when no one will tell him anything.

He is the lost confused narrator and detective trying to figure out the season. The only info we know is what Dean knows, or what Sam learns post-soullessness that he shares with Dean. And even when Sam’s back he’s not really the narrator because Dean was the sole POV for long enough that every thread is tangled around him.

And we know he doesn’t fully trust Sam right from the start (he’s been drugged with djinn poison and hallucinating Azazel when it’s actually Sam giving him the antidote, and then he gets dosed with djinn poison  _again_ ), and he sees Cas is acting shady and hiding stuff from him too, and he’s not even sure he can trust Bobby because he’d been hiding all this from him “for his own good” for a year, and he can’t bring this crap home to Lisa and Ben…

From Death asking him about the souls and digging deeper to what is Cas up to, what is Samuel up to, what was Crowley up to, blah blah blah and he doesn’t even want to THINK Cas is up to something.

When Death himself warns you about something Very Serious going on, it’s probably a good idea to take that lesson seriously, but it’s easier to think Cas is a dick than that he’s doing something awful he doesn’t want to tell Dean about.

(sublimation)

But also we, the audience, would rather believe that Dean must be wrong about at least some of this, because OWIE IT HURT to feel this level of betrayal and broken trust and abandonment and horror toward the core family that is practically ALL Dean has ever had in his life. WE don’t want to believe that our beloved Sam, Bobby, and Cas could (whether intentionally or unknowingly) do so wrong by Dean. And yet, he keeps fighting for ALL of them, because they ARE his family, and all he really has.

Then even when Dean earns Sam’s soul back, having played Death for a day and had his first majorly painful lesson in the natural order and cosmic consequences™, he’s still got to deal with the trauma and managing Sam’s reactions to learning the truth of his own “missing year.” Sam kept “scratching the wall” and Dean was doing everything in his power to convince Sam to just leave it alone, on top of everything else he was trying to juggle essentially alone…

So you don’t have to like Dean, or like the way he reacts to all of this, but hopefully this at least goes a little way toward explaining WHY he does what he does. Because really, in s6,  _Dean was not wrong_. He was vindicated by the narrative in the most horribly painful ways.

Sometimes we do the wrong thing for the right reasons, as Cas reminded Dean in 9.10. Cas was speaking from experience, and Dean knew it. S6 was the experience Cas was referring to, having done the wrong thing for the right reasons… all to save one human… I mean… *clutches at chest and falls over*

S6 Dean may have been right about pretty much everything, but egad he wanted nothing more than to be freaking wrong for once. Being right is sometimes the absolute worst.

Just like he was right about John being possessed in 1.22.

Just like he was right about there being no way out of his deal in s3.

Just like he was right about Ruby in s4.

Just like he was right about Cas “acting shady” and Metatron being up to no good in s8.

Just like he was right about the devastating consequences of using the Book of the Damned in s10.

Just like he was right about there being something “off” with Cas after 11.11.

Just like he was right about the BMoL in s12.

(and for me, personally, why I believe he’s also right about Cas being “sock puppeted” by Jack after 12.19, because the narrative– almost entirely without exception– vindicates Dean’s gut instinct about the Big Narrative Arc Issues). 

You absolutely don’t have to like Dean in s6. Maybe you’d react to those circumstances in an entirely different way. Maybe you tend to identify more with Sam or Cas and feel a little yanked around by the narrative in s6 because of it. But hopefully you can at least see Dean’s pov here, and even without liking it, maybe at least understand and sympathize with the guy a little. He was having a REALLY awful couple of years there…

 

[spn s6](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s6) [we don't talk about season six](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/we-don%27t-talk-about-season-six) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/seriously-though-why-doesn%27t-everyone-just-trust-dean%27s-gut-instincts-it%27s-like-he%27s-got-an-uncanny-magical-gift-here...)


	129. Chapter 129

[Jul 24, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163374022605/hi-something-thats-worrying-me-a-bit-with-that)

24 notes

**Anonymous asked: hi, something that's worrying me a bit, with that montage of samxeileen hug and deanxcas hug, the show never actually made samxeileen canonnically romantic, canonwise all we know for sure is that's a friendship, so my fear is that paralleling deanxcas with samxeileen is the show telling us these both are just friendships and nothing more, what are your thoughts on this?**

Just curious, but what was your reaction watching Sam and Eileen’s interactions in context within the show? Was there any doubt that they were rather flirty with one another? That they had an obvious chemistry? That they both liked and respected one another? That Dean even found their (obviously long-term and ongoing) interactions with one another “cute?”

I mean Sam and Eileen all but shared a pencil with one another. How much more would they have to do to make it obvious that they at least had ~more romantic feelings~ for one another? Dean felt like the “odd man out” and the third wheel in all of Sam and Eileen’s interactions. (meanwhile he was in the background pacing and trying to get in touch with Cas on the phone…)

At the end of 12.17, Dean was surprised that Eileen had left. It was implied that that scene occurred TWO DAYS LATER. So Dean woke up, came out to the library TWO DAYS AFTER their confrontation with Dagon, expecting to see Eileen hanging out with Sam still. So… fill in the fanfic gap with what you expect Sam and Eileen were doing for two days that would give Dean the impression that Eileen was going to continue to stick around. With Sam.

So.

Why, when the explicitly romantic parallels we’ve been pointing out that were used BOTH with Dean/Cas and Sam/Eileen– why are we suddenly trying to talk ourselves OUT of ascribing those parallels as “explicitly romantic” between Sam and Eileen, simply because the show has undeniably compared the two situations in a promo video?

Why are we so eager to take all these parallels that essentially demonstrate that those tropes used between Dean and Cas are explicitly romantically coded tropes, BECAUSE they were also being used to show an explicitly romantically coded relationship development between Sam and Eileen, but now all of a sudden because the comparison is being made in the other direction, the fact that these parallels are being used to “prove” that Sam and Eileen were platonically coded all along?

I mean… ?????

If you show the Sam/Eileen interactions to pretty much ANYONE who isn’t familiar with the show, and take a informal poll as to the nature of their relationship, I’ll bet every last person would assume they were together, or about to get together.

I’m sorry, I am just perplexed as to the reasoning here

 

[saileen](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/saileen) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [spn s13 promo](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-promo) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [we must be the only fandom who tries to talk OURSELVES out of stuff this way](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/we-must-be-the-only-fandom-who-tries-to-talk-OURSELVES-out-of-stuff-this-way) [i am honestly utterly perplexed by this entire question](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-am-honestly-utterly-perplexed-by-this-entire-question) [and inexplicably vaguely angry at the notion that a queer relationship could potentially invalidate a straight relationship](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-inexplicably-vaguely-angry-at-the-notion-that-a-queer-relationship-could-potentially-invalidate-a-straight-relationship) [subtextually like this and i mean the only explanation i keep coming back to is homophobia](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/subtextually-like-this-and-i-mean-the-only-explanation-i-keep-coming-back-to-is-homophobia) [and ugh i am really really really uncomfortable with this](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-ugh-i-am-really-really-really-uncomfortable-with-this) [sorry anon I didn't mean to sound so upset... but i hope you understand where my upset is coming from](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sorry-anon-I-didn%27t-mean-to-sound-so-upset...-but-i-hope-you-understand-where-my-upset-is-coming-from) [and it's not directed at YOU but at the fact that it could be so easy to dismiss this kind of explicit romantic coding](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-it%27s-not-directed-at-YOU-but-at-the-fact-that-it-could-be-so-easy-to-dismiss-this-kind-of-explicit-romantic-coding) [just because it also applies to a queer relationship and therefore must be platonic](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/just-because-it-also-applies-to-a-queer-relationship-and-therefore-must-be-platonic) [which just... ew ew ew no](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-just...-ew-ew-ew-no) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	130. Chapter 130

[Jul 24, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163376152295/one-of-the-anons-oh-no-i-wasnt-worried-dean)

14 notes

**Anonymous asked: One of the anons :) oh no I wasn't worried Dean would move on I just meant accept as in a defeatist attitude like thinking Cas is dead for good this time, I'm rubbish with things like this but isn't this the first time we've seen the scorched wings with Cas? So I was wondering if they'd think there was no hope or Dean would think ok we can find him wherever he's gone this time and they'd go searching rather than Cas just returning like in S8. I'm new to the fandom side so hope its phrased ok.**

Hi! :)

Yeah, it is the first time we’ve seen Cas’s burnt wingprints. I made a post shortly after the finale aired about all of his previous deaths, and how this one was different.

 

I don’t know if Dean will be quite that quick to give up on Cas, though. Cas has ALWAYS come back to him, you know? Even when he lost hope in s7. Even when he lost hope again in early s8 when Cas didn’t come back with him from Purgatory. Both of those situations seemed utterly hopeless to Dean at the time, and yet… Cas came back.

What I expect to see this time around is Dean doing something  _different_. We already saw him hopelessly mourning Cas in s7. We saw him do his damnedest to bring Cas out of Purgatory with him, and then go into extreme denial when Cas refused to try to leave with him at the last possible moment. This time around, we NEED to see him do something different.

This time around he’s also got the knowledge that Chuck was God all along, that Chuck appointed HIM the caretaker of this universe, that Chuck had asked for DEAN’S help in late s11, and Dean had offered it.

I’m wondering if Dean might finally try to call in that marker on behalf of Cas. Because Dean also kinda knows that Chuck was responsible for bringing Cas back to him so many times before. He has that power.

At the very least, I think we’re gonna see him really struggling to accept Cas’s death, and we’re gonna see it in ways we never have before.

 

[spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [pr is not showrunning](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/pr-is-not-showrunning) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 


	131. Chapter 131

[Jul 26, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163454512675/survival-of-the-fittest-rewatch-airs-today-i-have)

145 notes

**Anonymous asked: Survival of the Fittest rewatch airs today. I have still never forgiven Sera Gamble for putting the words in Dean's mouth that no one cares that Cas is broken. :) I don't care how frustrated Dean was, no wonder Cas doubts where he stands with the Winchesters. I always imagine Cas remembers all of the times Dean made those comments like being called junkless sissy. This is not really a serious complaint, just sharing an observation that Ritchie was right, "Words hurt, Winchester." :) :)**

Ooh, if we’re bringing Richie the Incompetent Hunter from 3.04 into things, let’s remember the context in which we’re quoting, because that’s key here:

**RICHIE** : Oh, man. You should have seen the rack on this broad. Freakin’ tragedy when I had to gank her.  
 **DEAN** : Whoa, whoa. Wait. Who killed her? If I remember, your ass was toast until I showed up.  
 **RICHIE** : Oh, I forgot what a comedian this guy was.  
 **DEAN** : Richie, Richie, know what? I told you then and I’ll tell you again — you’re not cut out for this job. You’re gonna get yourself killed.  
(RICHIE’s phone rings)  
 **RICHIE** : (to caller) : Talk to me.  
(to DEAN): FYI, Winchester — words hurt.   
(to caller): Yeah? (pause) No, it’s not a good time, babe. Later.  
 **DEAN** : So you find anything in this town, anyway?  
 **RICHIE** : Ah, no. I got nothing. Oh, wait a minute. You mean as in demons and whatnot?  
 **DEAN** : Yeah.  
 **RICHIE** : No, I got nothing.

There’s the quote in context. We’ve just met Richie, completely distracted by his “sister,” who is clearly a hooker, in a town that’s supposedly overrun with demons that he was theoretically hunting. His first story up there makes us wonder if he’d really had things under control on that previous hunt, but combined with his comment about the physical distraction the succubus provided and the fact that he also has NOTHING on the demons in town but is distracted so easily with the, uh… local entertainment… and the serious way Dean delivered his line about him not being cut out for this job, AND the fact that Dean was right and he DID end up getting himself killed… well… 

There’s also the joking bantering way he delivered that line to Dean about words hurting while he was talking on the phone with yet another woman he was hooking up with… I mean… Dean wasn’t trying to be hurtful, and Richie wasn’t actually hurt by his words. He was trying to be honest. Richie didn’t take his advice, and Dean ended up having to bury him. So take the quote in context.

Just like the quote about 7.23:

**CASTIEL** : I can’t help. You understand? I can’t. I destroyed… everything, and I will destroy everything again. Can we please just leave it at that?  
 **DEAN** : No. [He gets up.] No, we can’t.  
 **SAM** : Dean…  
 **DEAN** : We can’t leave it. You let these friggin’ things in. So you don’t get to make a sandwich. You don’t get a damned cat. Nobody cares that you’re broken, Cas. Clean up your mess!

Out of context, it sounds awful. But look back at ALL of s7 (and really most of s6 too). What’s the advice that Dean himself got from Frank, and from Bobby, and from Eliot freaking Ness, and pretty much everyone else all season long?

That his personal problems aren’t as important as getting the job done. Paste on a smile and decide to keep doing the job or just give it up. That there was no time for wallowing in his own depression:

**Eliot:**  Boo hoo, cry me a river, ya nancy! Tell me, are all hunters as soft as you in the future?

AND AS AWFUL AS IT WAS, IT KEPT HIM GOING UNTIL THINGS STARTED TO TURN HIS WAY AGAIN.

This… wasn’t a one-off pissy comment from Dean to Cas. Because why had Dean needed to suffer through pretty much everything he did in s7 until Cas came back? Bobby laid it out in 7.02:

**Bobby** : Course. You just lost one of the best friends you ever had, your brother’s in the bell jar, and purgatory’s most wanted are surfing the sewer lines, but you know, yeah, I get it. You’re fine.

But what was the DIRECT CAUSE of all of this? Cas’s actions in s6. This is why he had such a hard time forgiving Cas at first (which he talked about with Emmanuel in 7.17, before he actually DID extend the olive branch and essentially INSTANTLY forgave Cas for EVERYTHING). But as long as Cas was alive, and there, they could fix things. There was still hope that everything could be made right again.

In 7.21 when Cas first woke up, Dean let himself hope (despite Meg’s warning that he wasn’t quite the same) that Cas would progressively “get better,” because no matter how bad things sometimes got, Cas was still his friend, and still someone he relied on, put his faith in, because Cas had always come back to him… I mean, in the “Playing Sorry” scene, the nature of the board game and the moves they make essentially define the dynamic Dean’s struggling with here.

Dean plays first, and starts talking with Cas, but Cas refuses to engage with his questions at all. Instead he talks about something else entirely at the same time playing the game and knocking Dean’s piece back to the start. But Dean knows that Cas has information that can help begin to put this entire mess to rights. They literally have a tablet in their hands that may hold all the answers, and Cas is ALIVE and AWAKE, and he remembers EVERYTHING… and yet he doesn’t even seem to care ABOUT DEAN AT ALL. One of the things Cas can’t engage with due to his sense of abject guilt over IS DEAN. And what he did to Dean at the end of s6 and in 7.01. In his present state, Cas can’t see any way through to redeeming himself to Dean (which was ALL he wanted in 7.01 before the Leviathans took over).

But all season long, Dean’s been fighting mostly alone (or at least that’s how it felt to him) to try and clean up this mess that he’d tried to stop Cas from making in the first place. And goddammit, take ALL of that, Dean’s frustration from s6 and his desperation and loss throughout s7, mix it in a huge pot and serve it up when he’s so close to the finish line of saving the entire planet, knowing Cas holds the final key to taking Dick down… 

And he knows that CAS knows this. Dean’s spent three episodes trying to be understanding, trying to coddle Cas along, hoping HIS Cas that he knows is still in there somewhere, the one whose dying promise in 7.01 had been to redeem himself to Dean, the one who remembered everything and saved Sam in 7.17, the one Dean told they COULD fix it all if they worked together, the one who cares about humanity so much he stood alone against Heaven to save it.

The one Hester accused DEAN of having broken in the first place in 7.21:

**DEAN** : Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back off. We’re actually trying to clean up one of your angel’s messes! You know that.  
 **CASTIEL** : He’s right. An angel brought the Leviathan back into this world, and – and they begged him. They begged him not to do it.  
 **DEAN** : Look, just give us some time, okay? We will take care of your Prophet.  
 **HESTER** : Why should we give you anything… After everything you have taken from us? The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost! For that, you’re going to pay.  
HESTER walks towards DEAN.  
 **CASTIEL** : Please. They’re the ones we were put here to protect.  
 **HESTER** : No, Castiel.  
HESTER backhands CASTIEL and he falls to the ground. INAIS and the other MALE ANGEL each hold up two fingers to stop DEAN and SAM from going to CASTIEL’s aid.  
 **HESTER** : No more madness! [She punches CASTIEL.] No more promises! [She punches CASTIEL again.] No more new Gods! [She punches CASTIEL repeatedly and then holds up an angel knife.]

SHE DIRECTLY BLAMES CAS’S FRIENDSHIP WITH DEAN FOR EVERYTHING. “The very touch of you corrupts.”

Meanwhile, Cas is unable to even talk about his own actions in the first person. He’s doing everything he can to distance himself from his guilt. It’s the only way he’s able to engage with everything he’s feeling guilty about. And now Dean’s just got one more item on his checklist of things to feel like shit about– ruining an angel of the Lord– and not even through his actions or words or deeds, but  _by the simple fact of his existence_. He’s poison.

Yet… he’s still fighting. He’s still swinging, until he just can’t anymore. And some combination of desperation over all of this, after a season where he seriously contemplated just giving up so many times, where he cared so little about himself or the fight or just… anything… Cas’s current state is just the last straw.

Look at what Dean tells Kevin in 7.21 about being “chosen”:

**DEAN** : Oh, I don’t know, man. What can I say? You’ve been chosen. And it sucks. Believe me. There’s no use asking “why me?” ‘Cause the angels – they don’t care. I think maybe they just don’t have the equipment to care. Seems like when they try, it just… breaks them apart. 

THAT line always breaks my heart. Because it’s ABOUT CAS. And Dean’s guilt over what’s happened to Cas. HE feels like it’s entirely his fault that Cas is broken apart now.

Cas had done all of this to protect Dean. ALL of it. Including sacrificing himself to heal Sam in 7.17, which directly resulted in his current state.

And back to 7.23, Cas drops the bombshell on them that the entire garrison of angels is dead or in hiding– including the ones who’d been guarding Kevin Tran– and then veers off topic to talk about monkeys because he doesn’t want to get involved, he doesn’t want to fight, and he certainly doesn’t want to feel his personal guilt for yet another loss (of both the angels from his garrison AND the prophet).

This is also the first time that Dean tells Cas they don’t want him to fight, they’re just worried, and they need the information he has about Kevin in order to try and save him:

**CASTIEL** : I don’t want to fight.  
 **DEAN** : No, I’m not – [very calmly] we’re worried.  
 **CASTIEL** : They took him. He’s alive. I felt such responsibility, but it’s in your hands now.  
 **DEAN** : Wait. Hold on a freakin’ minute.  
 **CASTIEL** : I feel much better.

It’s in your hands now. As if that just absolved him of all that responsibility.

And that’s… just not how any of this works.

Plus, after what Crowley said:

**CROWLEY** : Certainly. Oh, bonus. Meg, I’m gonna scoop you up, take you home, and roast you till you’re jerky. [CASTIEL starts to move towards  **CROWLEY**.] But not… yet. Cas can have you for now. Hilariously, it seems he’d be upset at losing you. And the boys need Cas to get Dick. Don’t they, Cas?  
 **CASTIEL** : Oh, I – I don’t fight anymore.  
 **CROWLEY** : Come on. Given the particulars of your enemy, sadly, you’re vital.

CAS IS VITAL. They’d can’t get Dick without him. And from Cas’s reaction to Crowley’s assertion there? Cas knows it. He goes so far to avoid that truth as to make the Solidarity Sandwiches in order to dodge his responsibility AGAIN. Because again, he can’t look them in the eyes when he says it:

**SAM** : And Cas, why was Crowley so certain that you need to come with us?  
 **CASTIEL** : Crowley’s wrong. I’ll be waiting right here. But please – accept this sandwich as a gesture of solidarity.

When Sam and Dean show up at Sucrocorp the first time, they discover there are MULTIPLE Leviathans who ALL look like Dick. Their weapon only works once, so they can’t afford to bone the WRONG Dick, and they understand. Cas is the only one who can tell them which is the Real Dick. This is why they need Cas. And CAS KNOWS THIS. Yet he deflects AGAIN.

But WHY is he deflecting? Because just like Dean, who’s believed he was “poison,” and has been reminded of it very recently, Cas believes the same of HIMSELF. This is right in Dean’s personal wheelhouse. DEAN GETS IT. But he’s really got a limited set of tools in his personal emotional tool box for coping with that feeling he knows so well… 

This is also where they finally catch up with Bobby, and finally burn the flask keeping his ghost tethered to the planet, and Cas stands in the shadows witnessing Sam and Dean’s loss (that he also feels responsible for) of the closest thing to a father they had. He begins to realize that Dean and he are of a similar mind here…

**CASTIEL** : I’m not good luck, Dean.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah, but you know what? Bottom of the ninth, and you’re the only guy left on the bench… Sorry, but I’d rather have you, cursed or not. And anyway, nut up, all right? We’re all cursed. I seem like good luck to you? [CASTIEL stares at DEAN.] What?  
 **CASTIEL** : Well, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but I detect a note of forgiveness.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah, well, I’m probably gonna die tomorrow, so…  
 **CASTIEL** : Well, I’ll go with you. And I’ll do my best.

And despite Cas still not being able to forgive HIMSELF, he sees that Dean can’t really forgive himself either… yet they’re both able to forgive each other. It’s a start.

This story isn’t about just one or the other of them. It’s about BOTH of them, feeling the same weight of guilt and failure and loss. It doesn’t work unless you see that from both sides, in context of the gravity of the entire story, and what circumstance has taken from BOTH of them.

Which is why they BOTH ended up in Purgatory.

It’s not Dean “being mean” to Cas. And that one comment that Cas completely understood in context– he KNEW he was actively dodging his responsibility. Which is why I feel really uncomfortable labeling this incarnation of Cas “crazy.” Because he’s not. He’s in abject denial, but he isn’t crazy. The moment they land in Purgatory, he makes sure Dean knows what’s happened and where they are, and then takes off running to keep the Leviathans away from Dean. Perfectly lucid, perfectly aware, and doing the only penance he has left to him– protecting Dean by sacrificing himself.

Which is honestly how we got into this whole mess in the first place. It’s not DEAN’s words that drove him to this point. It’s just what angels DO.

Remember, Cas has been a warrior of Heaven for billions of years, reprogrammed at need to follow orders. His entire existence had been nothing but THIS. His notion of “family” in Heaven was an understanding that he had a purpose and a job and a place because of what he DID, not just because of who he WAS. It’s not even something Cas could truly understand yet– what family means to humans as opposed to what it means to angels.

Cas judged his personal worth on how useful he could be, not on the fact that he was someone Dean just cared about REGARDLESS of how useful he could be to them. Sure, in this case Cas was instrumental in fixing things, but no matter how many times Dean has told him he’s family, that they work better together, Cas still doesn’t have a human frame of reference to understand what that means. He will soon enough… *waves at s9 in the distance*

And wow, okay, I just spent nearly 4 hours on this. Wow. But this is important, this is everything, because this right here is the absolute Stone Number One in the foundation of ALL of Dean and Cas’s future relationship. This guilt on BOTH sides, for very different reasons. This feeling that they’re both poison. That they corrupt everything they touch… THIS pushed BOTH of them to find forgiveness in themselves through finding forgiveness in each other. I mean… without this there would BE NO DESTIEL. I mean… that’s the big picture here.

 

 

[spn 7.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.17) [spn 7.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.21) [spn 7.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.23) [spn s7](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s7) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [just one of MANY reasons i was perplexed by folks who were angry that s8 didn't give us canon destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/just-one-of-MANY-reasons-i-was-perplexed-by-folks-who-were-angry-that-s8-didn%27t-give-us-canon-destiel) [despite ALLLLLLL the subtext hinting at SOMETHING happening between them](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/despite-ALLLLLLL-the-subtext-hinting-at-SOMETHING-happening-between-them) [there was still ALLLLL this baggage^^ to work through for BOTH of them](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/there-was-still-ALLLLL-this-baggage%5E%5E-to-work-through-for-BOTH-of-them) [baggage that they're STILL working through individually](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/baggage-that-they%27re-STILL-working-through-individually) [that Dean's nearly come to the end of on his side but that Cas is still fighting through on his side](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that-Dean%27s-nearly-come-to-the-end-of-on-his-side-but-that-Cas-is-still-fighting-through-on-his-side)[THIS IS WHAT IS STILL BEING RESOLVED BETWEEN THEM THROUGHOUT S12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/THIS-IS-WHAT-IS-STILL-BEING-RESOLVED-BETWEEN-THEM-THROUGHOUT-S12) [s12 as s6 redux](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-as-s6-redux) [which is a tag i eventually expanded to include s7](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-is-a-tag-i-eventually-expanded-to-include-s7) [because this was it really-- the genesis of bringing ALL of this out of the subtext](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-this-was-it-really---the-genesis-of-bringing-ALL-of-this-out-of-the-subtext)[and without this baseline point where they started WE WOULDN'T BE WHERE WE ARE TODAY](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-without-this-baseline-point-where-they-started-WE-WOULDN%27T-BE-WHERE-WE-ARE-TODAY) [literally ALL of Cas's emotional growth since this point has rested on this singular fact](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/literally-ALL-of-Cas%27s-emotional-growth-since-this-point-has-rested-on-this-singular-fact) [which is why I get so ANGRY about folks laying all this blame on DEAN like this](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-is-why-I-get-so-ANGRY-about-folks-laying-all-this-blame-on-DEAN-like-this) [because it erases the narrative push that even makes a potential future relationship between them possible AT ALL](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-it-erases-the-narrative-push-that-even-makes-a-potential-future-relationship-between-them-possible-AT-ALL) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [s12 hellatus rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-hellatus-rewatch)


	132. Chapter 132

[them possible AT ALL](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-it-erases-the-narrative-push-that-even-makes-a-potential-future-relationship-between-them-possible-AT-ALL) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [s12 hellatus rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-hellatus-rewatch)

[Jul 26, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163461422290/starsinursa-theriverscribe)

2,154 notes

[starsinursa](https://starsinursa.tumblr.com/post/161443304664/theriverscribe-justrandomspnstuff):

> [theriverscribe](https://theriverscribe.tumblr.com/post/161428939823/justrandomspnstuff-helianthus21):
>
>> [justrandomspnstuff](https://justrandomspnstuff.tumblr.com/post/161427531877/helianthus21-helianthus21-no-but-dean-having):
>>
>>> [helianthus21](https://helianthus21.tumblr.com/post/161427000148/helianthus21-no-but-dean-having-an-elaborate):
>>>
>>>> [helianthus21](https://helianthus21.tumblr.com/post/161424218528/no-but-dean-having-an-elaborate-how-to-court-the):
>>>>
>>>>> No but Dean having an elaborate “How to court the Angel in eight easy years” - plan is actually hilarious to me.
>>>>> 
>>>>>   
> Sam: Dude he lost all his memories and is married to someone else
>>>>> 
>>>>> Dean: Shhh Sammy, it’s all part of my glorious plan
>>>> 
>>>> Step 84: make him a mixtape   
> Step 157: actually give him the mixtape
>>> 
>>> Step 85: ‘morning sunshine
>>> 
>>> Step 86: teach him how to flirt while calling him ‘devistatingly handsome’
>>> 
>>> *5,000 steps to win over an angel in eight easy years*
>> 
>> Step 37: keep his trench coat safely tucked in the Impala so when he inevitably returns it will smell like me
>> 
>> Step 52: assist him with his clothing at every opportunity
>> 
>> Step 76: insult his clothing  
> Step 77: he insults MY clothing, so I mix in some leather to show I respect his criticism
> 
> step 17: intrigue him by playing hard to get and reminding him about personal space
> 
> step 912: this is taking too long, fuck it, just sit in his lap in a diner booth. literally just sit. in. his. lap.

This is how I worked the math to write a 14 chapter story about Dean’s 10-step plan, and invented an entire mathematical system to justify those 14 chapters as only 10 actual steps…

  

 

[spn crack](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-crack) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [this... actually goes a long way to explaining the super-complicated math in Project Beyonce chapter titles](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this...-actually-goes-a-long-way-to-explaining-the-super-complicated-math-in-Project-Beyonce-chapter-titles) [I have no idea where these fractions are coming from. They involve a lot of prime numbers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/I-have-no-idea-where-these-fractions-are-coming-from.-They-involve-a-lot-of-prime-numbers) [which can be intimidating](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-can-be-intimidating)

[Jul 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163529983575/so-many-nice-destiel-moments-in-87-but-i-have-a)

63 notes

**Anonymous asked: So many nice Destiel moments in 8.7! But I have a question about something else, forgive me if it's been addressed before. Why do you think they introduced Donatello in s11 when he was not a part of this group Crowley kidnapped and Samandriel said there weren't any other prophets born yet? Did they forget some of this group survived? :)**

In 9.10:

**METATRON** : He was a threat, but I flipped a switch upstairs, and now that Kevin is gone, there will be no more Prophets. And what about Dean Winchester?

Metatron did something that “deactivated” all the prophets. Those folks were just… regular folks after that. But with Chuck actively working on Earth again, he had the power to pick himself a new prophet. Or maybe it’s something that’s automatic (like the making of Hands of God, that’s just a side effect of coming into contact with Chuck’s power). Who knows? But that’s why Donatello and not one of these potential prophets.

AND OH GOD the Destiel moments in s8 are so damn heartbreaking… because of Naomi. She ORDERED Cas to SPY on Sam and Dean, and report back to her. I mean, he probably would’ve wanted to stay with them anyway, but…

**NAOMI** : Tell me about Sam and Dean.  
 **CASTIEL** : The Prophet is being kept safe. The tablet has split in two and the Winchesters are trying to recover the missing piece. Why am I telling you any of this?  
 **NAOMI** : It’s not your concern. Help the Winchesters, come when they call. You will report in to me regularly, and you will never remember having done so.  
 **CASTIEL** : No. I won’t do that.  
 **NAOMI** : [smiling] Now, as you were. They won’t even notice you were gone.

He is on a mission for her, will report back to her, and yet will never remember having done so. So how much of Cas’s choices during this time are HIS, and how much are Naomi influencing him to participate in this mission for her?

Before I talk about that, I’d like to talk about how Crowley came to be the s8 Big Bad, because I think that’s important too. Just like Eve getting pissed off that Crowley and Cas were trying to hack and pillage Purgatory in s6, and just like the monsters were getting pissed in s12 when the BMoL were trying to exterminate them, Crowley’s in the same position regarding Hell in s8. OF COURSE he’s going to do whatever it takes to stop Sam and Dean from locking him and all the rest of the demons in Hell forever.

He hates that place, first off. But sealing up Hell… talk about something having Cosmic Consequences. Even the ATTEMPT to close Hell was enough to unbalance the natural order. And then Metatron went and dumped all the angels out of Heaven. That didn’t do anyone any good, either. So yeah, Crowley wasn’t just being a jerk for nothing here… He wasn’t the Big Bad of s8– Sam and Dean were. Or at least their hubris was.

Okay, back to the Destiel. Cas is still, throughout this time, struggling with his guilt, with the consequences of his actions from s6…

**CASTIEL** : See, it wasn’t that I was weak. I was stronger than you. I pulled away. Nothing you could have done would have saved me, because I didn’t want to be saved.  
 **DEAN** : What the hell are you talking about?  
 **CASTIEL** : It’s where I belonged. I needed to do penance. After the things I did on earth and in heaven, I didn’t deserve to be out. And I saw that clearly when I was there. I… I planned to stay all along. I just didn’t know how to tell you. You can’t save everyone, my friend… though, you try.

And he doubles down on this in 8.08. He insists he’s fine when Dean asks, but he can’t look Dean in the eye. Dean’s still worried about him, because he still has no idea how Cas managed to get out of Purgatory. CAS still doesn’t know how he got out of Purgatory, because he doesn’t remember his chats with Naomi… But it’s clear that Cas is still “not quite right”:

**DEAN** : Don’t get me wrong. I’m – I’m happy you’re back. I’m – I’m freaking thrilled. It’s just this whole mysterious-resurrection thing – it always has one mother of a downside.  
 **CASTIEL** : So, what do you want me to do?  
 **DEAN** : Maybe take a trip upstairs.  
 **CASTIEL** : To Heaven?  
 **DEAN** : Yeah, poke around, see if the God squad can’t tell us how you got out.  
 **CASTIEL** : No.  
 **DEAN** : Look, man, I – I hate those flying-ass monkeys just as much as you do, but –  
 **CASTIEL** : [forcefully] Dean! I said no!  
[After a pause, DEAN closes the laptop, walks over and sits on the edge of the other bed, facing CASTIEL.]  
 **DEAN** : Talk to me.  
 **CASTIEL** : Dean, I… When I was… bad… and I had all those things – the… the leviathans… writhing inside me… I caused a lot of suffering on earth, but I devastated Heaven. I vaporized thousands of my own kind, and I – I – I can’t go back.  
 **DEAN** : 'Cause if you do, the angels will kill you.  
 **CASTIEL** : Because if I see what Heaven’s become – what I – [sighs] what I made of it… I’m afraid I might kill myself.

then we get Moosus Interruptus (again), and Dean never gets a chance to probe further into this. Needless to say, it’s part of his underlying concern for Cas for the rest of the season.

Dean tries to treat Cas like the hunter-in-training that he insisted he wanted to be, yet all the while remaining A CONCERN about Cas’s mental state. And throughout this episode, Sam’s recalling his life with Amelia. Dean uses the same phrase– “Living in a dream world”– to describe Fred Jones’s state of mind, when Amelia’s father had used the same phrase to describe what she was trying to do with Sam, playing house together when they were both running from their problems and not really addressing them. Unfortunately, Cas takes that to heart, which is good in some ways and really… unfortunate in others.

Sure, he gets to a point where he doesn’t want to run anymore. He feels like he should face what he’d done. Not just punish himself by hiding and isolating himself (like he was doing in Purgatory), but really begin to make amends if he could.

(Recall that all the while Naomi has other plans for him, that he doesn’t know about consciously, despite acting on her wishes… so his wish to return to Heaven and face the consequences is overruled by Naomi, despite him not realizing that SHE is the one stopping him from acting on that wish. It really starts to mess with his head)

**NAOMI** : I can see what you’re thinking, and I won’t allow it.  
 **CASTIEL** : You don’t understand. I have been trying to pretend that I can escape what I did in Heaven, but I can’t. All that pain that I caused – I – I have to come back, to make things right.  
 **NAOMI** : And you are… by doing what you’re told. Bottom line – unless I ring my bell, you stay out of Heaven, Castiel.

And back on Earth, Dean is concerned, but after what Cas has said to him over the last few episodes ^^, Dean isn’t about to try and override Cas’s choices now. Dean invited Cas to stay with them, offered him shotgun, and told him he’d done good on the hunt. And Cas seems to be in a much better place than he was at the beginning of the episode. After his conversation with Dean, how honest Cas was with him about his feelings, Dean trusts Cas to talk to him now, to be honest with him if there was really something more going on here. But neither of them know that Cas isn’t fully in control of his choices here:

**SAM** : You – you what, Cas? W-why can’t you come with us?  
 **CASTIEL** : I, um… I want to stay with Mr. Jones. Someone should watch over him for a few days just to be safe.  
 **DEAN** : Okay, and then what?  
 **CASTIEL** : Then I’m not sure. But I know I can’t run anymore.

The parallel at the end of the episode is between Sam and Amelia– just as Sam’s accepted by Amelia’s dad, just as he’s starting to feel good about this life he’s making with her, she gets the call that her husband’s been found alive. Suddenly the choice to stay with her has been taken entirely out of his hands.

Just like Cas’s choices are out of HIS hands, when Naomi tells him no, and forces him to stay on Earth. It messes with him in really big ways. At the beginning of 8.08, he honestly DID want to be a hunter, he honestly seemed happy about staying with Sam and Dean. But once he’d made the conscious decision to return to Heaven and really try to seek forgiveness for what he’d done, to find out how he’d gotten out of Purgatory, Naomi had to directly override that decision. After that, Cas was conflicted and adrift, prevented from what he’d wanted to do.

Naomi actively prevented him from receiving that repentance and understanding that he’d been ready to face. So he has no idea WHY he’s being prevented from this, and he’s honestly confused by it. It really screws with him… Naomi is overriding his free will, and it messes with Cas in so many other ways.

All of this comes to an explosive head in 8.10, as Cas’s orders from Naomi, his own wishes, his own sense of obligation to help Samandriel, his relationship with Dean and Sam… just, everything goes sideways.

We see Naomi fully sock-puppet him, putting words in his mouth and forcing his hand in killing Samandriel, all in the name of keeping the knowledge of the Angel Tablet out of the Winchesters’ hands. Because if they’re decoding the Demon Tablet with the goal of shutting Hell, then what might they do if they got their hands on the Angel Tablet?

But Cas doesn’t CONSCIOUSLY know any of this. Sam and Dean are entirely in the dark about it. But they do know that SOMETHING is wrong with Cas…

It’s obvious to Dean that Cas isn’t himself, and while Dean still has no idea what brought Cas out of Purgatory, or how it might still be affecting him, it’s clear that Cas isn’t entirely acting on his own free will here. He’s acting like Robo Cas in that scene after he kills Samandriel, blood dripping from his eye, and he absently thanks them for their help before booping off with Samandriel’s body without any further explanation of ANYTHING.

It’s so unsettling to Sam and Dean that they completely ward the cabin against angels before even discussing the situation.

**DEAN** : I told you something was off with him since he got back from Purgatory.  
 **SAM** : So, what, you think someone’s messing with him or something?  
 **DEAN** : Who?  
 **SAM** : Angels?  
 **DEAN** : Why would the angels have him kill another angel?

Then we don’t even SEE Cas for the next SIX EPISODES. But we do see Dean praying to him. We see him concerned about Cas, getting a bit piney and worried, not knowing if Cas is even okay, but not really having any way to find out. Frustrating as hell, and combined with the whole Hell Trials thing going sideways, worry over Kevin, the discovery of the Bunker, learning about Henry and coming to a small bit of peace over their family’s history, and both guilt and concern over what the trials are doing to Sam… holy cow he’s got a lot on his worry plate…

Then the minute Cas comes back in 8.17, Dean’s thrilled that he’s alive, hurt that Cas had been ignoring his prayers all this time, and suspicious of Cas’s current behavior. It’s clear to him that Cas is lying to him, but he doesn’t understand WHY.

Until Cas is nearly beating him to death and begs Naomi to let him stop hurting Dean. 

It’s the Big Threatening Button theory of mind control here– you can only control people’s actions up to a point before something will go so violently against that person’s own self-interest that they’re able to overcome said brainwashing. And for Cas, that point is Dean.

*stops typing to cry about this, and I’m only up to watching 8.09 here. I’m gonna be a mess when it actually airs next week…*

And knowing ALL of this, that scene where Cas flaps back to Heaven with Samandriel’s body looks unsettlingly similar to Cas leaving the playground with Kelly at the end of 12.19. He delivers nearly the same line to them both times–  he  _thanks_  them for what they’ve done. In 8.10 he boops himself off to points unknown, but in 12.19 he no longer has that ability, so instead of booping HIMSELF off, he boops Sam and Dean unconscious so he can flee with Kelly.

In NEITHER scene is he acting fully of his own accord. The scenarios are just too similar to allow any other explanation.

Cas kills someone under the complete control of another being:

  * Naomi forces him to stab Samandriel 
  * Jack forces his power into Cas to kill Dagon (which yeah, that’s good for Cas because Dagon was about to kill him if he hadn’t… so… )



Cas is behaving in an uncharacteristically fishy manner:

  * Cas is bleeding FROM HIS EYE, acting distant and robotic, not looking directly at Dean, and WE see how Naomi is literally sock-puppeting him– her literal words coming out of his mouth.
  * Cas has this weird golden grace creep across his skin and INTO HIS EYES, acting distant and robotic, not looking directly at Dean, and we can only assume that whatever zapped into his eyes is still affecting him, because we can’t SEE that glow anymore, but stuff like that has ALWAYS had lasting consequences on this show– Dean with the MoC, Cas taking on Sam’s soul damage… that visual effect, the glowy-veined thing, has only ever been used as a Not Good Thing.



I mentioned above that Cas thanked Dean in both of these scenes, but Dean’s line to Cas in both of these scenes is also telling:

  * In 8.10:  **DEAN** : Cas, you okay?
  * in 12.19:   **Dean** : Are you okay? 



And in both circumstances, we’re supposed to be replying HECK NO HE IS NOT OKAY.

(heh, not to mention Amanda Tapping is directly responsible for BOTH of these scenes– directing Cas’s actions via mind control as Naomi in 8.10, and LITERALLY DIRECTING his actions in 12.19, as the LITERAL DIRECTOR of the episode… I find that pleasantly meta)

But there are KEY differences this time around. S8 culminated in Cas having his grace stolen, falling and becoming human AGAINST HIS WILL. But s12 ended with us watching Cas’s grace explode when Lucifer stabbed him with an angel blade, his wing prints burned into the earth. Both the angel and human parts of him are “dead” for now. The spoiler that he’ll be coming back in s13 (or at least the “important parts” will be coming back, and he’ll still be “our Cas”) makes me believe that he might finally have a CHOICE in all of this for once. And that’s what’s different this time.

Leading up to this eventual choice, the situation wouldn’t work unless nothing that’s come up to this point has actually BEEN his freely-made, 100% conscious choice. Because WHAT BROKE THE CONNECTION? An angel blade through the heart. Up to that moment, Cas had been hiding things (or trying to). He’d been running from Dean like he had with the angel tablet after 8.17.

The EXACT same way that he’d run throughout 8.21:

Lookit how run down he is. The tablet was FORCING him to do this, in the interest of its own self-protection. It doesn’t WANT to be found. It doesn’t WANT to be used, by ANYONE. Not demons nor angels nor Winchesters.

REMIND YOU OF ANYONE?!

Like Jack, who doesn’t want to be used by Lucifer or Dagon or EVEN THE WINCHESTERS. He might only have as much self-awareness of that lump of artfully carved rock before he’s born, BUT HE HAS AT LEAST AS MUCH POWER AS THAT ROCK.

(remember Metatron used the tablet to power himself up to nearly god-levels during s9, so we KNOW what an angel who WANTS to tap into that power can achieve. What could an entity who WANTED to tap into Jack’s power potentially use it for?)

But Cas… has no interest in exploiting either the power of the tablet nor Jack’s power for their own personal ends. Like the tablet accepted him as its guardian for that reason, Jack seems to have done the same with Cas in 12.19.

It’s freaking Harry Potter able to grab the Sorcerer’s Stone in the Mirror of Erised because he wanted to PROTECT the stone from being used, while everyone else wanted to use it for their own ends. BOTH TIMES– with the angel tablet and now with Jack.

Why do I keep finding Harry Potter references in this show? Ugh.

So now that Cas has been put into this position YET AGAIN, but in a slightly different way, and with a different perspective after living through the intervening years (which he admitted have “changed him” and have been “the best part of his life” and during which he’s grown to accept the Winchesters as his family, and that he loves them), how will things be DIFFERENT this time around? That’s what s13 will show us.

Because EVERYTHING that’s happened in the intervening years has changed Cas. He lived as a human for a time. He was jerked around by the universe, by Metatron, by God and the Darkness and Lucifer and Heaven… and after all of that, NOTHING ELSE is the same as it was back in s8.

Our lil angel has come so far… :’)

(and yes, this is why it totally would’ve skeeved me out if destiel had actually gone canon back in s8… the eurgh factor was just too high with all the mind control…)

(and whoops I mentioned to lizbob that i was typing up something about s8 destiel several hours ago, and she just pointed out that I hadn’t posted it yet, and I had to confess that I was still typing it a couple hours later, so I figure I should probably stop now… :P)

 

[spn s8](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s8) [spn 8.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.07) [spn 8.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.08) [spn 8.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.10) [spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [spn 8.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.21) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [s12 hellatus rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-hellatus-rewatch) [spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/seriously-though-why-doesn%27t-everyone-just-trust-dean%27s-gut-instincts-it%27s-like-he%27s-got-an-uncanny-magical-gift-here...)


	133. Chapter 133

[Aug 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163794473695/okay-this-is-why-my-brain-has-decided-to-torment)

22 notes

Okay, this is why my brain has decided to torment me with today while rewatching 9.06. This is how my brain is crediting Bobo for balancing out two ????? things from Bucklemming episodes. My brain frequently credits Bobo for good deeds done, but this is probably stretching things a bit.

Up for comparison today: 9.03, 9.06, 9.09.

Let’s start at the end of this tenuous connection, with 9.09. Cas mentions April and the information she gave him before… torturing and stabbing him to death. And Dean awkwardly bumbles on in what appears to be some sort of manly-man slap on the back for banging the chick:

**DEAN** : Yeah. (awkward pause) She was hot.  
 **CASTIEL** : So hot. And very nice.  
 **DEAN** (appreciatively) Mm.  
 **CASTIEL** : Up to the point she started torturing me.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah. Well, not every hookup’s perfect. 

I know, right? Ugh

But the phrasing tripped me up here, because Cas used the exact same words in 9.06 in a VERY DIFFERENT CONTEXT:

**CASTIEL** [on phone, holding the baby] Nora, she’s hot. She’s really hot. Please just call – call me. Call – call back. If I don’t hear back, I’m taking her to the hospital.  
[CAS hangs up. The baby continues to fuss, and he waits for a few seconds to see if the phone rings. He puts it in his pocket, and feels the baby’s head again.]  
 **CASTIEL** (worried) Okay, Tanya, we’re taking a little walk.  
[He walks toward the door with the baby, presumably to take her to the hospital. Reaching the door, he opens it – to reveal the Rit Zien angel.]  
 **ANGEL** : Hello, Castiel.

The BABY is hot, feverish. And she’d been “very nice” at first. Up to the point she started torturing him. And the “hookup” Cas believed he’d been invited out on by Nora ended up being FAR from perfect.

Dean knew ALL of this, obviously. Can you just imagine for a moment that during the fanfic gap after Dean and Cas defeat the Rit Zien angel that Dean would’ve tried to console Cas, to cheer him up about his misunderstanding about the date? About his entire babysitting experience? About his frustration that he couldn’t just cure Tanya of her fever, and couldn’t even tell what was wrong with her like he could’ve done with his grace?

The fact that Cas and Dean were both SMILING over this conversation in 9.09 makes me want to believe that there was an “inside joke just between us” quality to this exchange. Especially with the grin Dean gives him with the “Not every hookup’s perfect” line.

Ephraim then TORTURED Cas at Nora’s house, when Dean realized that Cas was in danger and raced back to defend him. Dean hears part of Ephraim’s speech, and brings Cas the means (an angel blade) to kill Ephraim and save himself. This is what Dean overhears:

**EPHRAIM** : You say you want to live. But you can’t see what I see. By choosing a human life, you’ve already given up. You … chose … death.  
[EPHRAIM lifts a hand to CASTIEL’s forehead.]  
[DEAN slides the knife across the floor towards CASTIEL.]

We can only assume that after this Dean helped Cas tend to Tanya’s fever (because he’d know how after taking care of Sammy), and then they cleaned up Nora’s house together. Before they leave together for at least 8 hours of fanfic gap, Sam calls and tells Dean that there is no reversing the angel fall spell, which Dean chooses not to mention to Cas.

ALL of this is weighing on Dean tremendously. He hears that Cas “chose” this human life, but Dean didn’t hear the other part of Cas’s speech with Ephraim. Dean believes that Cas was only tricked into the spell by Metatron and left human against his will. Dean feels GUILTY that Cas is “stuck as a human.” He didn’t hear Cas declare that he wants to live, even as a human himself.

Sure they may have talked about all of this afterward. But Dean STILL felt guilty that he couldn’t invite Cas to come back to the bunker with him. But it is after this point that Dean really does start pushing “Ezekiel” to get done fixing Sam already. It’s also the point where Cas decides he can’t just sit back and live a “normal human life” and does what he can to try to help the angels.

There’s still a tremendous amount of misunderstanding between them, with each of them trying to protect the other as best they can. But hell if it doesn’t make it a little easier to assume they at least used that fanfic gap to try and comfort each other and try to take this terrible circumstance they’re both in and make something not quite so horrifying out of it.

 

[spn 9.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.03) [spn 9.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.06) [spn 9.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.09) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [this is a bobo berens appreciation blog](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-a-bobo-berens-appreciation-blog) [bucklemming canon acrobatics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/bucklemming-canon-acrobatics) [this is exactly the kind of extreme pretzelification my mind attempts in order to make their episodes less icky](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-exactly-the-kind-of-extreme-pretzelification-my-mind-attempts-in-order-to-make-their-episodes-less-icky) [in this case i'm giving full credit to bobo for making it bearable because it was only his episode that made this alternate read possible](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/in-this-case-i%27m-giving-full-credit-to-bobo-for-making-it-bearable-because-it-was-only-his-episode-that-made-this-alternate-read-possible) [s12 hellatus rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-hellatus-rewatch)


	134. Chapter 134

[Aug 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163797794545/i-was-talking-to-a-friend-the-other-day-who-is-a)

31 notes

**Anonymous asked: I was talking to a friend the other day who is a little salty that Cas "can't just be the focus, Mary had to get pulled in with lucifer." But I think aside from a lot of practical reasons for that (working around number of times they can afford to have Misha appear, giving Mary something to be doing as a character, having more than one sub plot so viewers don't get bored/tired of focusing on one thing, etc) I think both dramas/crisis will bring different things to the narrative and development.**

Plus, I think it’s somewhat reflective of real grief and crisis. There’s never just one thing, it’s a ripple effect and people often look for other things to focus on too. Plus, multiple things going on with ppl who influence the guys in different ways will give them plenty of room to grow in a few different aspects. So yeah, I’m super excited and confident Cas isn’t just gonna be tacked on in the back of deans mind. He’ll be on the forefront like Mary, but in different ways.  
  


Hi there! (I’m pretty sure these two messages belong together, right?)

The thing is, I believe the fact that Cas wasn’t the sole focus of the tragedy in 12.23 is IMPORTANT. And that the fact that we’ll be shown Dean’s specific reactions to three similar yet VERY DIFFERENT losses (Cas, Mary, AND Crowley) all at once not to lump his feelings all together in a general denial and anger over all of them, but to highlight the DIFFERENCES between what each of these losses means to him.

Much as some folks who watch the show SOLELY for the destiel bits of the story, THIS SHOW OVERALL IS NOT STRUCTURED AS A ROMANCE. It’s a horror/fantasy narrative with elements of personal and romantic storylines laid over that essential narrative structure. As such, the romantic arcs are ALWAYS going to be just that. The main focus of Supernatural is never going to be a romance in that strict definition of what a romance narrative is.

Which brings me to another anon in my inbox. I hope it’s okay that I brought this question into this other reply:

_I’m so scared that Destiel will never be canon. There have been times where I’ve almost stopped watching the show because of it. I want to believe that they will finally make it happen, but I’m losing hope. And there’s this small voice in my head telling me, that I’m just irrational and they never liked each other that much. But their story is so beautiful and I can’t help but see love when I look at them. Help._

This is the sort of thing I mean. I personally see no signs that they’ve abandoned the romantic STORY ARC between Dean and Castiel, but it’s essentially a subplot in the much larger narrative of Supernatural, and as such will always be told through the conventions of a Horror/Fantasy overarching narrative structure. Watching the show ONLY for the destiel and missing that in a Horror/Fantasy narrative the romance arc doesn’t function the same way it would in a strictly romantic story is a recipe for constant frustration and disappointment.

But understanding how Destiel fits into this much bigger story the show is telling often provides HUGE keys to understanding just how integral the individual character progressions Dean and Cas have been through, as well as the very long and gradual (and ongoing) progression of their relationship have become to the overarching narrative. They’re pillars that support the main story, which would collapse without these supports.

In a Romance Narrative, Cas would’ve been Dean’s only loss, and his grief and reactions solely toward Cas’s (however temporary) death would’ve been the singular focus of his emotional expression going forward. And while that would be an obvious and undeniable sign of Dean’s feelings for Cas, it doesn’t really work in the structure of a primarily Horror/Fantasy narrative.

In a Horror/Fantasy narrative, it’s BETTER for our exposition of Dean’s feelings if his grief isn’t solely focused on the loss of just Cas. Our “whiskey and denial” and “shove it all down and keep pushing forward through tragedy” Dean Winchester would feel too blatantly and shockingly ~off~ if this were the lone loss he had to react to. What I’m gleefully awaiting is the BLATANT DIFFERENCES in his reactions to the loss of Crowley via his self-sacrifice, the loss of Mary by Lucifer dragging her through the portal, and the seemingly more permanent loss of Cas…

His reactions, I believe, will be made distinctly clear, and we’re going to be shown a Dean coming to terms with those differences in his OWN feelings.

 

 

[spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [this is how stories work](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-how-stories-work)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	135. Chapter 135

[Aug 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163798275940/12-so-ive-seen-people-suggest-that-that-the)

159 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 So, i've seen people suggest that that the reason Dean wasn't affected by hunger in the horsemen episode was because what he desired--Castiel--was with him. And i'm just not sure? Like, at that point in the series, things were a bit more doom and gloom and Dean's arc of being empty and dead was in full swing, so i tend to agree with Famine that Dean was struggling with those issues, and maybe his own inner struggles/beliefs about himself were powerful enough to not be affected.**

2/2 Maybe it was so powerful he didn’t feel the affects like others, even if we know he was not in fact actually dead inside. Plus, while back then there was some obvious tension (sexual and otherwise) i’m not sure anything Dean was feeling or starting to feel for Cas would’ve been strong enough to subdue Famine’s effects. I like to read destiel into things as much as the next person, but i do really believe that situation was less about just destiel and more about a greater arc.  
  


Hi! I… haven’t ever actually read that particular theory, I don’t think. I firmly believe that Dean WAS affected by Famine. Even Sam noted that Dean was acting “out of character” long before Cas ever showed up:

**SAM** Well…I mean, we got our feelers out. Not much more we can do tonight. All right. I’m just gonna go through some files. You can go ahead and get going.  
 **DEAN** Sorry?  
 **SAM** Go ahead. Unleash the kraken. See you tomorrow morning.  
 **DEAN** Where am I going?  
 **SAM** Dean, it’s Valentine’s day. Your favorite holiday, remember? I mean, what do you always call it– Uh, unattached drifter Christmas?  
 **DEAN** Oh, yeah. Well… be that as it may…I don’t know. Guess I’m not feeling it this year.  
 **SAM** So you’re not into bars full of lonely women?  
 **DEAN** Nah, I guess not. ( takes a sip of his beer) Ahh. What?  
 **SAM** That’s when a dog doesn’t eat– That’s when you know something’s really wrong.

Just like all the other Horsemen though, they weren’t entirely  _right_  about  their assumptions about Dean.

In 5.02 War seriously underestimated Dean and Sam’s ability to overcome his influence and save the town (and defeat him personally by claiming his ring). In 5.21 Pestilence also underestimated Sam, Dean, AND Cas, and the three of them working together were able to both defeat HIM as well as his long-range plans to distribute the Croatoan Virus. The only Horseman who really understood Dean and therefore was able to come out the better from their encounter was Death. But that’s only because they had similar endgame goals.

So I take Famine’s words to Dean with the same grain of salt I took Pestilence’s words to Cas, believing Cas was no threat to him.

I mean, not even CAS HIMSELF was able to subdue Famine’s direct influence over him. But the craving Dean felt IN HIMSELF was for the sort of contentment and satiation of having that “gaping hole” in himself filled  by ALL the coping mechanisms he’d developed over the years for “filling that emptiness” in himself. Not that he’d crave the coping mechanisms themselves, but that he’d crave the sort of comfort and satiation of NOT NEEDING THE COPING MECHANISMS to achieve that feeling within himself.

I hope this makes sense. 

Because in THIS sense, his comfort and openness with Cas throughout the episode, his easy camaraderie and then concern for Cas when he could see Cas falling to Famine’s influence is where the actual Destiel feelings are. That without Dean’s constant need to fill that gaping hole, THIS is how he could be all the time. At peace with himself, comfortable and content, able to enjoy Sam and Cas’s company fully without feeling that weight of guilt and emptiness in himself, or feeling the need to satisfy those cravings in order to feel worthy of Sam and Cas’s companionship, or the fear that he’d LOSE that companionship because of that emptiness and worthlessness he felt inside himself.

Gah. I REALLY hope this makes sense.

 

[spn 5.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.14) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	136. Chapter 136

[Aug 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163805433380/do-you-think-dean-has-ever-actually-been-in-love)

17 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think Dean has ever actually been in love (before Castiel)? I know he loved Cassie and Lisa but I've always thought those were more along the lines of "I love the idea of you and the life we could have." I think at least one conflict with his feelings for Cas are that Dean's never felt this way about anyone before. He knows the base emotions because he has felt them for others, but as far as being truly, freely, really in love the way two people are supposed to? I'm not sure.**

Yeah, I’ve talked about this before. I feel like he was more in love with the idea of Cassie, as that first relationship he thought might be something more than his usual one night stands. He told her the truth about his life, and she rejected him for it, but he always held on to the ideal of what could have been with her. At least seeing her again in 1.13 gave him some sort of resolution that finally enabled him to move forward again.

With Lisa, I think he loved the idea of that apple pie life, that normal ready-made family that accepted him despite knowing at least some of the truth of his life. Lisa took him in and cared for him during the worst time in his life and made that year bearable for him. I absolutely think he got just as much out of his relationship with Ben during that year as he did from Lisa. Lisa took care of him and helped him get back to his feet, but he also got to have a normal parental relationship with Ben in ways that he never did with kids he encountered during hunts, and in ways he’d been incapable of interacting with Sam when he’d just been a kid himself. All the ways he’d felt he’d failed Sam in the parental role he’d been forced into as a child, he had a chance to do better with Ben.

And as awful as that year had been for Dean, Lisa and Ben got him through it, gave him a renewed purpose when he’d lost everything else. Did he love them? Undoubtedly. Was he  _in love_  with Lisa? Like, Eternal Devotion for Ever and Ever through thick and thin, willing to fight through hell and high water to keep her by his side in love? Eh, maybe not so much.

That’s not to diminish how important she was to him, and how hurt he was after deciding it was better for her and Ben to forever forget that he even existed… But despite several times where Lisa delivered an ultimatum, that he needed to choose between a relationship with her and his life as a hunter– and his relationship with Sam (which yeah, at that point was rather scarily codependent, but also the fact he couldn’t bring his hunting life home to Lisa and Ben, like that time he literally was a vampire and yet still felt the need to say goodbye to her in person. He brought danger to her, and she wasn’t okay with him bringing that part of his life home with him).

It’s complicated, basically.

But yeah, he’s never had that complete understanding from a romantic partner, the understanding of someone who’s in the life, who isn’t going to force him to make choices of “me or hunting,” or who couldn’t understand him completely and accept him despite that.

(and yeah, I think Cas is the first one to tick ALL the potential boxes off Dean’s list, but they both still have a way to go before they realize that for themselves, and before they both feel like they DESERVE it and don’t need to feel guilty about it.)[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [lisa braeden](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/lisa-braeden) [cassie robinson](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/cassie-robinson) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	137. Chapter 137

[Aug 22, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164492389030/re-destiel-hug-i-understand-the-frustration-of)

45 notes

**Anonymous asked: Re: destiel hug. I understand the frustration of it not seeming like the show will ever just let dean focus on Cas. That there's always something else going on. That they won't hug or get a minute alone more often. I get it. But what I just had to accept was that that the show is not a romance. It will never focus on just one singular thing. Everything contributes to the grander picture because that's what kind of show it is. It's not done to dilute the dean/Cas moment.**

Yep. I mean, it’s definitely an ongoing subplot of the story structure, but it’s not the MAIN plot, and never will be.

You know how everyone always gets pissed off when anyone involved with the show reacts “negatively” to questions that imply Destiel is where the story is going, with things like, “That’s not what the show is about” and things like that? Well this is what they mean.

Supernatural is a Fantasy/Horror show. That’s the story structure the show has always used.

Supernatural is not, has never been, and will never be a primarily Romance-driven narrative.

Think of it this way. One show whose Romance Narrative has been oft-compared to destiel is Castle. Castle was never a primarily romance driven narrative. That element certainly always existed within the show, right from the pilot episode. The entire narrative of the series had this underpinning of the enemies to friends to lovers trope between Castle and Beckett. It obviously wasn’t the SOLE narrative of the series, but it was always there in the background driving the character arcs, right from the start. And even there, where it was a fundamental building block of the entire series narrative– that will they/won’t they tension– you could practically see it from space that eventually they’d get together (and then all that tension would be transferred into a will they/won’t they STAY together, because their relationship WAS a pillar that supported the overall narrative, the show couldn’t just LET them be happy, you know? It had to continue to pull on their relationship right to the series finale).

But Supernatural was not founded on this notion of that sort of interpersonal romantic tension. That evolved over time, and the show has (thankfully!) never allowed that to become the foundation of the actual narrative structure of the series. Not that it isn’t THERE now, not that they haven’t built on it and incorporated the relationship between Dean and Cas into the series and even rested huge chunks of individual character development on the potential romantic development between them, but it isn’t the structure upon which the entire rest of the series is dependent, you know?

The series isn’t ABOUT THAT.

Or at least, that’s not the ONLY thing it’s about. And that’s the way we like it. The dramatic tension comes from OTHER STUFF, like the supernatural nonsense they all have to deal with, and the other interpersonal relationships and individual character development. This actually bodes well for them eventually HAVING that resolution in canon where they can be together, because the drama of the show doesn’t rely on the drama and tension created by their relationship.

(That said, please let them hug. I just want them to be happy. :D)

 

 

[this is how stories work](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-how-stories-work) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [because again 1001 nights comes to the rescue to explain my point better than I can :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-again-1001-nights-comes-to-the-rescue-to-explain-my-point-better-than-I-can-%3AP) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	138. Chapter 138

[Aug 22, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164494921105/what-ever-has-to-do-the-show-not-being-about)

20 notes

**Anonymous asked: what ever has to do the show not being about romance with getting a hug alone without anyone else present, just cas and dean being the focus? they're still friends, and family, friends can't hug without witnesses? the brothers have hugged with nobody present**

Hi there! I feel like we’ve reached Anon!Inception at this point. I assume you’re referring to my reply here:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164492389030/re-destiel-hug-i-understand-the-frustration-of>

Which I believe was actually in reply to a reply [@elizabethrobertajones](https://tmblr.co/mgG_5cqPDBqPGN1DslU_e6Q) made earlier today, and which I reblogged:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164490873875/very-important-question-will-there-ever-be-a>

Which… had to do with the romantic nature of destiel, the scheherazade of supernatural, and the significance of a dean-cas hug compared to a sam-cas hug or a sam-dean hug, because the show has literally differentiated their relationship in very explicit ways.

The essential point underpinning this entire conversation has been the fact that Dean and Cas re not “friends” in that same way, and therefore any hug between them without other characters bearing witness to it is laden with so much romantic subtext that there is basically no way for them to portray this without it having an element of that romantic nature become surface-text.

That’s why they can’t just “hug as friends” if they’re alone together.

Friend hug:

[Originally posted by attackofthekillermexisaurusrex](https://tmblr.co/ZlvO2x16AOOvt)

Awkward not-just-friend tension:

[Originally posted by weallneedcastiel](https://tmblr.co/ZEJTdq2L621ko)

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	139. Chapter 139

[Aug 24, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164568969480/todays-jaunt-through-the-tnt-loop-hit-the-part-of)

22 notes

Today’s jaunt through the TNT loop hit the part of s11 that points the car toward the finish line and revs the engine. 11.15-11.18  (and really 11.14 is where it starts, but I watched that one yesterday, so it feels weird to include it in a post specifically about what I’m watching today… stupid brain refusing to organize itself more practically) takes the themes of the season spelled out in the triptych of 11.11, 11.12, and 11.13 and begins driving them home with purpose.

Amara and the Darkness hang like a metaphorical raincloud of escalating depression over this run of episodes, contrasted with the light and power of the Hands of God “weapons” that equally elude their grasp. The larger metaphorical and thematic struggle of the season plays out offscreen for the most part, since these two opposing fundamental forces of the universe– creation vs destruction, light vs darkness, order vs chaos (hello my old friends my s11 meta tags!)– are where the main a-plot action of the season is happening. We see that cosmic struggle through the lens of what TFW are struggling with.

As above, so below. Gabriel once referred to that concept (in 5.08) to explain why Sam and Dean were the “perfect vessels” for Michael and Lucifer. It’s the same concept as “the river shall end at its source,” as Metatron once said. And it’s[ the essential narrative structure of the entire series](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/160988290690/12-while-i-do-not-ask-this-to-be-negative-at) as far as the individual character arcs are concerned. S11 is where this entire concept pivots around and shows us the pivot point– Dean Winchester, the firewall between light and darkness. Chuck and Amara both literally pointed at him as their exemplar, and in 11.23 he (armed with the power of Humanity) became the vehicle that finally united them both. Such is the power of the duality of humanity the show (and Dean specifically) has been wrestling with for years (hello entire MoC arc summed up in the themes of 10.11).

I know I’ve written about Dean’s descent into depression over the Cas-Lucifer situation, and there are hundreds of posts on my blog in the tags for these episodes detailing all of this already. But I can’t help it. Dammit, s11 let me love you.

in 11.15, we find Dean already packed to head out to The Hangman’s funeral. He’s concerned for Cas, but that concern hasn’t hit DESPERATION levels yet. He’s still rational, still hasn’t really come to grips with what they can do about Cas yet beyond being positive that Cas WANTS to be saved. He’s still at loose ends over his own confession about how incapable he feels in Amara’s presence, but is still confident that Sam is handling that end of the research for now.

11.16 escalates his growing depression and frustration at any lack of progress despite the “win” he’d had in 11.15 and the reaffirmation of the whole “keep grinding” theme. What they believe will be an easy vengeful spirit case turns out to hit very close to home, bringing them back to the comparable feeling of frustrated desperation of the apocalypse era by literally existing in both times at once via the Soul Eater’s nest. It may not have been the easy win Sam had hoped it would be, but it was still a necessary diversion that allowed them to set their own pasts (via saving Bobby from the Soul Eater) to rights. A major theme of s12, as well– rectifying their own past via Mary’s resurrection and personally coming to terms with their own legacy via the Men of Letters.

11.17 opens with Dean reaching a state of abject depression over their inability to gain any ground on either the hunt for Amara or a way to save Cas, and for the first time he drags his heels on taking on a case that Sam suggests could be a good distraction for them. Sam is clearly concerned for Dean, and despite Dean including Amara, Lucifer, and the Hands of God in the list of things they’re trying to handle, Sam narrows Dean’s reasons for wanting to hand this suspected case over to another hunt to one singular point:

**Dean** : All right, well, we make a call and we put somebody on it.  
 **Sam** : Yeah, but… [He sighs, closes his laptop and looks at Dean].  **We’ll get him back.**  
 **Dean** : How?  
 **Sam** : I… I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out. Meantime, we got to get out of here. Clear our heads. I mean, this is a case. Let’s do what we do. Let’s work it.

None of their other pressing concerns is weighing on Dean like Cas is. That one line is the foundation for the rest of the action in the entire episode. Poor dumb Corbin had no idea just how badly he underestimated Dean in forcing his hand by “killing” Sam, and selfishly using a rational mathematical argument to push Dean into walking away from his brother there. The underlying hesitation and depression Dean had been fighting through BECAUSE SAM HAD ASKED HIM TO HELP ON THIS CASE, because SAM had been trying to help get Dean out of his own head for a few days, essentially washed away when Corbin killed him.

When he finds Sam dead, Dean’s ready to give up everything. It had been SAM who’d kept him going, who’d given him a reason to “keep grinding.” Without Sam, Dean had lost hope for everything else.

It was Michelle who gave Dean a reason to keep fighting right there, and the walk through the woods to save her gave Dean enough time and space to reorganize his priorities. And it was Michelle again reminding him of Billie’s threat of the Empty that spurred him into desperate action yet again. It brought back the reminder that Dean was helpless to deal with Amara on his own, and that it was Sam that the fate of the entire universe was resting on.

And it was his chat with Billie there that finally taught him that the universe didn’t really care about fate… It gave him the push to begin fighting the depression and helplessness that was metaphorically the “thrall” Amara had over him.

11.18 is where Dean begins taking back the reins of his own fate. It’s also the first time he faces Amara and is able to ignore her completely, calling out for Cas instead. He’s begun to disconnect himself from the power she’s had over him since he took the Mark of Cain, because he chose something different. It’s also where we distinctly see the difference between Sam and Dean’s relationship with Cas, and the seeds are sown for expanding on that difference in s12.

**Sam** : I thought Lucifer had a shot. Apparently, uh, archangel plus God power doesn’t trump God’s sister.  
 **Dean** : But if the thing has to be used by God’s chosen, then maybe an archangel who got the boot doesn’t qualify. Either way, horn’s out of ammo, so…  
 **Sam** : So, back to square one.  
 **Dean** : Yep. [Sighing.]  
 **Sam** : Listen, um… I know I came down on the side of wanting Cas to deal with Amara, so…  
 **Dean** : Well, that’s what he wanted, though, right? Besides, didn’t we say that we were gonna swear off getting in the way when one person makes a choice the other doesn’t agree with?  
 **Sam** : Yeah, um… Yeah, we did say that.  
 **Dean** : So…  
 **Sam** : Okay. So, that’s our policy.  
 **Dean** : Which sounds damn good. [Sam chuckles.] Well, let’s go find that idiot and bring him home.

Yes, their policy is to honor the other’s choices, but Cas’s choice to say yes to Lucifer has played out. He thought Lucifer could defeat her, and Lucifer failed. Cas had been wrong, but that only reinforced Dean’s need to save him now. From what Crowley said about Cas being unreachable because of Lucifer’s control over him, Dean understood that Cas couldn’t just kick Lucifer out on his own, despite now having proof that Lucifer either lied about being able to defeat Amara or was just wrong about it. Cas’s “choice to say yes” hinged on that promise, and now that it was null and void, they could save Cas without wondering if it’s what he’d actually want.

It was heartbreaking for Dean to watch Amara zap Cas away, but it was actually the shot of hope he’d been needing– the certainty that he needed to intervene in any way he could to rescue Cas.

Okay, I guess that’s enough jibberjabber about stuff I’ve already talked about ad nauseum. :P

 

 

[s12 hellatus rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s12-hellatus-rewatch) [spn 11.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.15) [spn 11.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.16) [spn 11.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.17) [spn 11.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.18) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [*mittens attempts to become one with the universe amid the sea of duality*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Amittens-attempts-to-become-one-with-the-universe-amid-the-sea-of-duality%2A) [order vs chaos and darkness vs light](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/order-vs-chaos-and-darkness-vs-light) [it's spirals all the way down](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-spirals-all-the-way-down) [and now the darkness](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-now-the-darkness) [this season's getting handsy](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-season%27s-getting-handsy) [here have my belated thoughts on the whole love... and love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/here-have-my-belated-thoughts-on-the-whole-love...-and-love) [because why not maybe the lock and key are a function of hands and hearts](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-why-not-maybe-the-lock-and-key-are-a-function-of-hands-and-hearts) [holy crap it's fun to haul out all my s11 meta tags *makes out passionately with s11 meta tags*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/holy-crap-it%27s-fun-to-haul-out-all-my-s11-meta-tags-%2Amakes-out-passionately-with-s11-meta-tags%2A)


	140. Chapter 140

[Aug 28, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164729573175/12-as-much-as-i-love-the-headcannon-of-sam-and)

19 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 As much as i love the headcannon of Sam and Mary (though "Sam knows" is much more prominent) knowing about dean and cas, I also like entertaining the idea of especially Mary having to get used to it? Especially considering the time she grew up. Even if she's not against it at all, I imagine seeing two hunters, one of them a supernatural/former supernatural being, in a same sex relationship might go against the image of them she grew up in her whole life.**

2/2 And Sam being fully accepting and happy for them, but also feeling a shift in dynamics at first as he tries to navigate some of the awkard aspects of living with a couple. Feeling like a third wheel at times, or lonely himself. Wondering where his place is if there’s a couple’s spat. I find the idea of them settling and adjusting to be charmingly imperfect and sweet to imagine the little new hurdles and steps to them settling into a family:-) But anyway lol that went really in depth:P  
  


Yeah, I think this was one of the prominent headcanons before s12 aired, when so much fic was being written of a very accepting and understanding Mary, or even shipper!Mary talking to Dean about this and encouraging him to be happy with Cas. There was a lot more serious spec (aside from the fun of indulging in this happy families fun in fic because it was fun and fluffy and happy and that’s the sort of thing that fic has always indulged) that postulated that Mary would be far less than accepting, just because of the era she’d lived in. The very beginnings of the AIDS epidemic, etc. But that she’d want to work on herself because she’d want to be able to accept her kids as they were. Which did end up being a huge part of her story arc in s12, even if it wasn’t specifically about her kids’ sexualities. :P

Although the parallel has been made between Sam’s Otherness arc in early seasons being compared to Dean’s Social Outsider As Hunter being a sort of queer narrative in itself, metaphorically speaking, so I guess on that level of the subtext, the comparison is more than apt here, since Mary’s objection to her kids’ lives WAS that they’d become hunters. They’d grown up fighting monsters on the fringes of society when she’d just wanted them to have normal lives.

But yeah, I imagine ANYONE in a circumstance where there’s one couple paired off would deal with the third wheel feeling at times. I think we’ve already seen this a little bit… in 12.10 it became painfully, blatantly obvious. Even in 12.19 Sam was pulling a bit of the awkward middle-of-the-spat get-me-the-hell-outta-here when Cas came back to the bunker.

 

 

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [mary f. winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mary-f.-winchester) [hashtag married](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/hashtag-married) [anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anonymous) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel)


	141. Chapter 141

Sep 16, 2017

303 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 It's funny to me how Dean's bisexuality is like a puzzle piece. Individually, it's easy to say that each moment means nothing, and I feel that that happens a lot. But put all the pieces together? You got a pattern. A complete picture. I also like to play "would it be weird?" or "Is it unique?" As applied to dean and cas's interactions. Would it be weird for Dean to act this way to Sam or look at him that way? If yes, it might be more than brotherly love he feels for Cas.**

2/2 Or, is this action unique to Cas or has Dean done this for/to/with his other friends? If not, again, you might need to ask yourself if what Dean feels for Cas is not what he feels for Sam or his friends.  
  


YES. THIS. And it’s this pattern, this complete picture, that we’ve put together and tacked little shorthand notes to, like, “PIE VS CAKE” or “BI PLAID” or “GAY VEGETABLE WATER.” Because there is so much behind each of those shorthand notes that we’ve all discussed and analyzed and boiled down to these simple sounding concepts.

And I know this isn’t directly about your messages, and I promise to get to that, because I have yet another “test” to be applied to these situations that I find useful… but I gotta say this bit first. :)

This applies to SO MUCH meta analysis, and how we discuss and refer to VAST concepts that have been meta’d into the ground over the years. I’ve recently run into misunderstandings with folks discovering some of the old meta during the hellatus, when I’ve started tagging things with old meta tags again. Because *I* understand the shorthand, because I watched all these conversations happen in real-time over a period of years and have sort of internalized these concepts the same way we’ve internalized the bi!Dean shorthand concepts. So I’ve seen this happen in entirely unrelated bits of meta, so I know it’s not JUST an understanding of the bigger picture of Dean’s characterization. Which I found really fascinating, and it’s a good reminder that what I’ve accepted as unambiguous and stuck a bunch of weird shorthand labels on, others might have difficulty groking the much wider meaning behind.

Okay, that having been said… You’re absolutely right. Individual instances might be argued away, or rationalized out of context, or ignored as an anomaly, but the fact it keeps happening over and over and over again… at what point does it start to look like an exercise in futility to try and find alternate explanations for so much evidence? Yeah. :P

Would it be weird for Dean to make Sam a mixtape? Is it unique for Dean to openly discuss his feelings with Cas?

So in addition to “would it be weird” and “is it unique,” I’d like to offer, “How would it look if Cas was a woman?” Which is a horrifying proposition, but heteronormativity is a thing. For some people, this actually helps overcome it.

How would it look if Dean stared into a woman’s eyes like that? How would it look if Dean had been so single-minded worrying about a woman the way he worried about Cas in 12.20? How would it look if Dean had placed numerous phone calls and left numerous messages for a woman?

Or given a woman this look:

or this one:

or this one:

[Originally posted by shirtlesssammy](https://tmblr.co/ZG9WDj2IvmHOm)

I mean… All three of those would make me feel HIGHLY uncomfortable if they were directed at Sam, so there’s your first test passed. :P

These reactions aren’t particularly  _unique_ , per se, but really, who else has Dean ever reacted to in even remotely similar ways?

I mean, example #1 up there kinda maybe looks a little bit like how he reacted to Lisa after she’d been possessed by a demon and been forced to stab herself. But it’s not an exact match. He was a little bit busy trying to keep her alive, trying to get Ben to help get them all out of there, and feeling guilty for having brought her into this mess by her association with him in the first place. So… I guess this one can also be filed under “is it unique,” because very. :P

Example #2 I’ve seen a parallel gif to Dean admiring a waitress in the opening scenes of 1.03. So I’m calling that one for “would it be weird,” even if it doesn’t fall under “is it unique.” But apply test #3, “what would it look like if Dean reacted to a woman that way,” and we have our answer:

**DEAN** : You know, Sam, we are allowed to have fun once in a while.  
DEAN points to WENDY walking away; she’s wearing short shorts.  
 **DEAN** : That’s fun.  
[…]  
SAM rolls his eyes. WENDY walks by, distracting DEAN.

Yes, she distracted him into a move that’s essentially identical to the infamous boner scene. So tell me how it’s intended to convey something different when he’s reacting to Cas than when he’s reacting to Wendy?

Example #3 there, Dean’s seeing Cas for the first time in at least several weeks. Dean had stood outside staring at him through the window, debating whether or not (or maybe HOW) to approach Cas, and he eventually decided to try and surprise him. Meanwhile, Misha had been given the instruction to play this entire scene as “a jilted lover.” So, I mean… I don’t understand how what they’re portraying is in any way unclear. :P

The entire episode would’ve been creepy if Sam had been in Cas’s role. Like, horrifyingly creepy. So it definitely passes the “would it be weird” test. The “is it unique” goes pretty much without saying. But in this episode, if Cas had been replaced in this storyline with a woman, there would’ve been a sex scene where we got the fanfic gap.

And I said at the top of this post that I personally DETEST the “what would it look like if Dean did this with a woman” argument, but it does seem to put things into perspective for the recalcitrant heteronormatives.

And these are just three examples off the top of my head. Put in context of the entirety of their interactions, and yeah…

Oh, and since I mentioned Dean’s reactions at the beginning of 12.20, have a few bonus shots of Dean acting in ways that are unique over Cas:

[Originally posted by justjensenanddean](https://tmblr.co/ZXeJsu2LU8enS)

[Originally posted by spnjensenlove02](https://tmblr.co/ZZiAVo2LLG39r)

Not to mention calling his mom just to talk because he’s “spun out” over some things (i.e. the thing he had tried to talk about with Sam, but Sam had nothing to offer him that helped… Dean literally called his mom to talk about his feelings over the whole Cas situation because he’s that worried… I mean…)

 

 

[dean winchester is bilingual](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-winchester-is-bilingual) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [and yeah all these examples i used are ABOUT Cas](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-yeah-all-these-examples-i-used-are-ABOUT-Cas) [but i could've pulled examples about other dudes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-i-could%27ve-pulled-examples-about-other-dudes) [we all just thought of a list of at least a dozen different dudes dean's interacted with over the years right?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/we-all-just-thought-of-a-list-of-at-least-a-dozen-different-dudes-dean%27s-interacted-with-over-the-years-right%3F) [i think the whole point of this post is that we no longer have to spell out the entire history of this every time we make a new post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-think-the-whole-point-of-this-post-is-that-we-no-longer-have-to-spell-out-the-entire-history-of-this-every-time-we-make-a-new-post) [pointing out yet another detail to add to the vast pile of details we've already assembled here :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/pointing-out-yet-another-detail-to-add-to-the-vast-pile-of-details-we%27ve-already-assembled-here-%3AP) [which only serves to make each successive round of 'but it could be platonic!' seem more and more ridiculous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-only-serves-to-make-each-successive-round-of-%27but-it-could-be-platonic%21%27-seem-more-and-more-ridiculous) [sure out of context of all the other 'it could be platonic!' moments that one incident might not seem terribly significant](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sure-out-of-context-of-all-the-other-%27it-could-be-platonic%21%27-moments-that-one-incident-might-not-seem-terribly-significant) [but it's not just that one incident... it's hundreds of them](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-it%27s-not-just-that-one-incident...-it%27s-hundreds-of-them)[you have to be living in a very very deep well of denial to think it's even remotely credible to explain away ALL of them](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/you-have-to-be-living-in-a-very-very-deep-well-of-denial-to-think-it%27s-even-remotely-credible-to-explain-away-ALL-of-them)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

Which led to this reply:

 

 

[Sep 16, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165417303035/puzzletest-questions-anon-i-agree-with)

94 notes

**Anonymous asked: (Puzzle/test questions anon) I agree with everything you said lol! I agree that a big red flag is when you have to do more work to disprove it than just admit it's there:P Also, I think Dean's rampage through purgatory could also be an example. Is it unique or would it be weird? Not really, Dean is fiercely loyal to his friends and has done similar things for Sam in the past. But how would that whole thing have looked if Cas were female? Dean running around screaming "where's the angel?" 1/2**

2/2 Also the way other people talk to dean about Cas. Would most of it pass the “would it be weird” test? Oh yes. Is it unique to Cas? I would argue definitely yes, others treat Dean and talk to him a certain way in regards to Cas very uniquely. No one has ever teased him about Benny being his boyfriend. Because Benny is his FRIEND.  
  


Hi again! (for reference, [here’s the post we’re referring to](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165389075685/12-its-funny-to-me-how-deans-bisexuality-is))

Oh gosh, yeah. I mean, we all know that Dean would’ve absolutely torn Purgatory up the same exact way trying to find Sam. That’s an absolute GIVEN. What made this situation absolutely unique is that most of the time he spent on the WHERE’S THE ANGEL rampage, he DID have a way to get back to Sam.

I mean, is there any other character in canon that Dean ever worked so hard to return to as Sam? And yet… with a direct route back to earth, Dean refused to leave without Cas. He spent  _a year_  putting off returning to Sam. And then  _altered his own memory of Cas refusing to leave with him into a scenario where HE failed to pull Cas out because it was too painful to think that Cas would rather stay in Purgatory without him_.

I mean… ????? 

Explain this in a platonic way. I dare you. :P

I think this is why Benny’s nickname for Dean was always “Brother.” Benny was literally a brother to Dean when Sam had “failed him.” That was sort of the plot of 8.05, 8.06, 8.09… And Sam even brought him up again in 8.23. Benny served as a counterpoint to the difference between his relationship with Dean and Dean’s relationship with Cas.

There were a couple of references (specifically FROM SAM) lumping Benny and Cas together into the same category, in 8.06 when Dean (under the influence of the cursed Specter Coin) vents his anger over Sam leaving him “to rot in Purgatory” over a girl, Sam brings up Benny. Even in his cursed state, Dean describes Benny as “a brother to me.”

But when things get tough in 8.10, and Dean begins to suspect that things are NOT OKAY with Cas, Sam finally makes a clean break from Amelia (his previous romantic interest) and Dean makes a clean break from Benny. It’s soooo tempting to conflate Benny as a “romantic interest” for Dean because of a few moments like this, but it doesn’t completely track in the larger picture. Because Dean also makes a much bigger declaration regarding Cas– he wards the cabin against angels so Cas can’t “spy” on them like he had done back in s6. That was Dean’s heart wrenching “breakup” in that episode.

Oh gosh I could go on about this for years. Oh wait, I already have :P

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/155400941330/awed-frog-pregnantdean-and-he-never-did> (not included here because the post is awed-frog's)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150936146950/am-i-the-only-one-in-this-fandom-who-doesnt-think> (included below)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/143718538945/i-wonder-what-benny-thought-when-he-saw-how-dean> (included below)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/143219088195/damn-you-only-got-pt-2-shit-i-cant-even> (included below)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/140931982710/angelswatchingover-mittensmorgul> (included below, even though the post was winjennster's, a big chunk of it is mine)

That should about do it for now :P

 

 

[dean winchester is bilingual](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-winchester-is-bilingual) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

Sep 25, 2016

81 notes

**Anonymous asked: Am I the only one in this fandom who doesn't think Benny/Dean was a thing??**

[bluestar86](http://bluestar86.tumblr.com/post/150933393818/am-i-the-only-one-in-this-fandom-who-doesnt-think):

> [elizabethrobertajones](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/150931029403/am-i-the-only-one-in-this-fandom-who-doesnt-think):
>
>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150927849580/am-i-the-only-one-in-this-fandom-who-doesnt-think):
>>
>>> Hi there! And no, you’re not. Cool thing about fandom: No matter what you personally think and feel about stuff, there’s bound to be at least one other person who will agree with you. Which is awesome. :D
>>> 
>>> Much to the chagrin of some of my friends, I don’t think Benny/Dean was a thing either. And you know, I bet some of the people who ship Dean/Benny aren’t even sure if it was an actual thing in canon, but that’s also one of the marvelous things about fandom. Things don’t have to be explicit canon in order for us to find enjoyment in them.
>>> 
>>> Fanfic, fan art, and headcanons don’t have to be justified in canon. If you like the idea of two characters together, even if those characters never even met in canon, why not enjoy imagining them together and then exploring those potential relationships however you feel moved to do so? It’s GLORIOUS!
>>> 
>>> I mean, I’ve read some wonderful fic with such strange canonically impossible pairings of Jo/Charlie, for example. And really enjoyed them!
>>> 
>>> Heck, I’ve even read meta analyzing the potential that Dean and Benny did have a canon relationship (at least presented subtextually in parallel with Sam’s relationship with Amelia, which was textually a sexual/romantic relationship).
>>> 
>>> I know it’s a fairly popular ship in fic, too. I mean, nowhere near the number of destiel shippers, but there are quite a fair few people who ship it and have apparently written some really beautiful stories. I haven’t read them myself because I can’t get past my own mental block on the ship, but that’s MY issue, not an issue with the writers or their stories.
>>> 
>>> And I do admit that I could see it in canon a little bit on Benny’s side of things, but I personally was never able to see past Dean’s single-minded rampage through Purgatory on his hunt for the angel to even remotely believe that Dean returned Benny’s feelings. I think Dean really did feel brotherly toward Benny, the way soldiers in the trenches feel a brotherly bond, but that whole time Dean’s sole objective was finding Cas, and that’s what haunted him once he got out and failed to get Cas out, too. Benny may have been the surface parallel to Sam’s relationship with Amelia, but all the underlying thoughts, feeling and emotions connect back to Cas, with Benny paralleling more to the role of the dog Sam hit, rather than to the girlfriend he’d ended up abandoning when Dean came back…
>>> 
>>> And gosh, I think I need to add that meta to the list of things I should be meta-ing about… Like the dog facilitated Sam meeting Amelia, Benny facilitated Dean finding Cas. It… kind of gives more weight to Dean’s repeated comment, “Sam hit a dog.” AARGH. Just what I need. More stuff to think about. :D
>>> 
>>> So no, you’re not the only one. But I also get why people see it, and why they’d enjoy reading and writing fic and creating art for their ship. And we can all enjoy the fact that we’re all deriving our own enjoyment from the same show in so many different ways. :)
>> 
>> Yeah, I also don’t know if I really ship it at all, or that anything was implied by canon  _overtly_  from Dean’s end in any way… I mostly find myself enjoying how it was all framed in a meta way as ridiculous bi!Dean subtext paralleling Amelia to Benny - though as you point out there are a billion different angles to parallel the characters in season 8, and some episodes managed dozens of them just depending on the line currently being spoken :P Stuff like the break up line from Charlie in 8x11 seems fairly straightforward paralleling though and the most obvious… Anyway, I often find myself viewing it very abstractly just as parallels and implications where the subtext is saying more about Dean in a way almost just posing the question than actually trying to tell us anything about the reality of their relationship. 
>> 
>> There are plenty of times Sam and Dean have been paralleled in similar ways to romantic couples in order to get at a certain side of their current conflict or whatever and I’ll always take it as a given this subtext isn’t implying they’re literally married or in love, but is part of the particular way their story is told. (Of all the many, many dudes Dean gets this sort of thing with, Crowley is the only one (Cas excepted as an example because huge and complicated story) I’d say ever really crossed a line in that way; there’s dead on nothing between Benny and Dean implied about their time in Purgatory compared to what we get with Dean and Crowley’s summer of love).
> 
> As much as I love Dean and Benny’s relationship in canon I have never been able to actually ‘ship’ them romantically. The show does of course put the subtext in there for us to meta about and it is a valid reading. But like what both Mittens and Lizzie said, at that point in time, Dean’s primary focus was always Cas. He bonded with Benny and I am not gonna deny that there were somehomoerotic moments between them. But I can’t see it that way as it would completely distract from Dean’s motives in purgatory and his mourning after purgatory. 
> 
> I gotta agree with Lizzie on this one that sadly enough, the worst ship on the show was more ‘canon’ than Dean x Benny. Simply because the writers brought it so close to textually canon that it made it impossible NOT to see it. Whilst with Dean x Benny, it remains firmly hidden in the subtext.
> 
> As much as I may loathe to admit it, at this point in the shows canon timeline, the  _only_ other main male character that I think Dean has actually canonically ‘crossed the line’ with is Crowley. 
> 
> I  _DO_ think that they slept together many times during their ‘summer of love’ because the text and the subtext of the show both heavily imply it. As well as many of Crowley’s comments to Dean after the events.
> 
> Whereas with Benny, and also, sadly, with Cas, the subtext has only gone as far as to maybe imply romantic feelings, but never truly give us any indication that they have actually ‘done the deed’. ( _9x06 fanfiction gap notwithstanding because even though I love that theory, I don’t think that logically this could have happened between the two characters and not have something change in the show between the way they interact - compare this to how Dean and Crowley’s dynamic HAS changed, and there is your final clue_.)
> 
> Honestly, I think that Dean and Benny were blood brothers, soldiers in the trenches who will forever have a deep bond because of what they went through together, but that their relationship was always platonic.

Yeah, I was thinking about this post after I wrote the original and seriously considered coming back and adding the stuff about Crowley for comparison’s sake, because yeah. ^^ everything y’all added there. Thanks for saving me the bother of typing it all out. :D

Source: [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150927849580/am-i-the-only-one-in-this-fandom-who-doesnt-think)

Reblogged from [awed-frog](http://awed-frog.tumblr.com/post/150933610122/am-i-the-only-one-in-this-fandom-who-doesnt-think)

 

 

[spn s8](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s8) [spn s10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s10) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [benny!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/benny%21) [crowley](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/crowley) [i always thought of dean/benny as a one-sided ship which is why I just don't feel it in fic but yeah](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-always-thought-of-dean%2Fbenny-as-a-one-sided-ship-which-is-why-I-just-don%27t-feel-it-in-fic-but-yeah) [worst ship on the show](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/worst-ship-on-the-show) [dean winchester is bilingual](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-winchester-is-bilingual)

 

 

 

 

May 1, 2016

833 notes

**Anonymous asked: I wonder what Benny thought when he saw how Dean was with Cas on the shore banks in Purgatory. What had he thought before then? It's been a while, but i remember being half convinced that Benny thought "Cas" was Dean's girlfriend or something the way Dean was talking about him, and then they find him and it's this scruffy weird dude that Dean just smiles at as bright as the sun and shows such tenderness towards right after committing such brutal acts of violence. And Benny's just like "oh."**

Oh, I think Benny was aware of Cas’s physical presentation (at least as far as the “looks like a dude” aspect of it) long before they actually found Cas. What he was likely most surprised by was Dean’s behavior.

They’d been hunting in Purgatory together for months at that point. And even before that, Benny had heard rumors of “the Human” cutting a bloody swath through Purgatory’s denizens in search of the Angel. That was Benny’s reason for seeking Dean out in the first place. He knew about the portal, and he figured if he helped Dean out he could barter a trip topside out of the deal. It was worth a shot, and if nothing else, Dean had earned a reputation for his ruthlessness and effectiveness in battle.

Then Benny watched him all those months, watched him torture other monsters mercilessly. Watched him execute them in cold blood. And then move on to the next one. He was a fighting, killing  _machine_.

Until he found Cas.

Then all of a sudden this brutal, stone faced killer positively  _melts_. EVERYTHING about Dean changes as he descends that hill to the river bank. He opens his arms, SMILES, and hugs Cas. Touches his face and grins like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

Benny hears Dean’s confession, that he’s prayed to Cas  _every night_ , and Cas’s heartbreaking reply. And Dean still doesn’t give up. He refuses to leave without Cas, even though Benny doubts that Cas can use the portal, because he’s not human.

And when Dean finally resurrects Benny after he gets topside, and Benny doesn’t immediately see Cas standing there next to Dean… well he has the good sense not to ask where he is. He knows.

YOU MADE ME CRY, ANON. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?

 

 

[spn s8](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s8) [purgatory](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/purgatory) [BENNY!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/BENNY%21) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

Apr 22, 2016

323 notes

**Anonymous asked: Damn, you only got pt 2?! Shit, i can't even remember everything in it. It was basically saying how while i don't feel that dean calling cas "buddy" or having more of a bro moment would be completely out of character, i just think they've come too far and have gone to great lengths to show how different cas is to dean, and how different dean is around him. How he treats him. Compare it to how he is around Benny, his actual "bro" friend. I just think they've come too far, especially after 11x18.**

[elizabethrobertajones](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/143209684393/damn-you-only-got-pt-2-shit-i-cant-even):

> [f-ckyeahfutbol](https://f-ckyeahfutbol.tumblr.com/post/143206944726/damn-you-only-got-pt-2-shit-i-cant-even):
>
>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/143196166045/damn-you-only-got-pt-2-shit-i-cant-even):
>>
>>> > (2/2) So while i wouldn’t be completely surprised if we got more of a bro moment once all this casifer stuff is said and done, i can’t say i’m exactly *expecting* it after seeing how Dean was in 11x18. So pining and tender and broken, there was nothing bro like about how he was towards anything to do with Cas. I guess we’ll see, but i’m sure whatever it is will be emotional and make them all feel good and blah blah blah:-) Hopefully. As long as it’s sincere on all sides, i’m good. 
>>> 
>>> Hi there, and thanks for trying to recreate part 1 of this ask. The original is probably laughing at us both from The Empty. I think that’s where misdirected tumblr asks go. They pop up on post-it notes pinned to the cork board in the back room at the Walmart E, and angels on their coffee break try their best to answer them, but there’s no outgoing mail service from The Empty. They had to cancel it after Gabriel kept trying to mail himself to Purgatory (the one in Miami).
>>> 
>>> SO.
>>> 
>>> Yeah. They’ve definitely gone a very long way in differentiating how Dean behaves around “bro friends,” including Benny. And having rewatched s8 fairly recently (and relived the first 5 episodes, which included a lot of Benny stuff, through [Lizbob’s weird rewatch notes](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-rewatches)– no that’s what she calls them, I’m not saying they’re weird, that was her tag for them), he definitely treated Benny differently. In fact, I just read the one for[ 8.05](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/143134687878/8x05-rewatch-or-listen-the-title-of-this-episode) yesterday, where she made this observation:
>>>
>>>> TBH the ridiculous OTT way Dean reacts to hurt!Cas makes this Dean helping hurt!Benny thing more bro-y than basically anything going on in the actual scene for my eyes :P
>>>> 
>>>> like “oh just found my vampire buddy mostly dead in a dark hole waiting for help but you know it’s cool”
>>>> 
>>>> and his reaction to Benny wandering out healed and in clothes is painfully setting us up for 8x07 and Cas’s ~cleans up nicely~ moment of infamy
>>> 
>>> Ah, the power of Hindsight Goggles, especially after watching Dean care for Cas in 11.03, and then continuing to worry about him over the phone in 11.04.
>>> 
>>> Even going back to how he felt about Benny when he asked Benny to die in order to go to Purgatory and get Sam out. That was a pretty significant thing for someone to ask of a friend, and a pretty significant thing for said friend to agree to. Even Sam was willing to offer Benny a second ride out on the “Soul Train,” because Sam knew how much Benny meant to Dean, and clearly Dean meant a lot of Benny for him to show up to help Sam in the first place. Sam knew what had to happen to Benny in order for him to be there, and that it was Dean who’d done the deed. Dean was pretty broken up that Benny decided not to return, but Dean wasn’t  _shattered_  in the same way he was over Cas not wanting to come back from Purgatory.
>>> 
>>> Sure, Dean buried Benny’s body near the portal in Maine, just in case he ever decides he wants to come back. Dean respected Benny’s choice, but he left the metaphorical door open just in case. And then he moved on with his life.
>>> 
>>> There were no hallucinations of Benny popping up outside his motel room window in the rain. No nightmares (at least, not that we were shown. I have a feeling Dean has nightmares about all sorts of things we’re not privy to). No faraway stares into the distance with glassy-eyed slow-zoom reaction shots. Dean didn’t invent a false memory in order to feel less awful about Benny’s decision to stay behind.
>>> 
>>> Then there was the Halluci!Benny Dean talked with under the influence of the Werther Box. Yeah, it was a bit of his own psyche, conjured by guilt and urging him to kill himself (which was the function of the Werther Box spell), but it was the part of Dean that had actually found Purgatory “pure,” represented by his friend.
>>> 
>>> I was sitting here thinking about Dean’s other bro friends.Poor Dean needs more friends. I guess technically Charlie was a bro-friend, in that he considered her like a sibling. His reaction to her death was dialed up to 11 on the violence meter under the MoC’s influence, but it sent him off the rails, and likely would have even without the Mark driving him to it. It also hadn’t been that long since HE’D been the one to hurt Charlie when the Mark took over in 10.11.
>>> 
>>> As skeeved as I am to say it, I think Crowley counts as one of Dean’s bro friends now. *ew ew ew summer of love and all that* *spits* But they have a relationship that runs the gamut from personal confidant on family matters (like in 10.17 where Dean gives him the “family don’t end in blood” speech) all the way to “we did extraordinary things to triplets.” Take that however you want.
>>> 
>>> Sure Dean’s not buddy-buddy with Crowley, and he knows who and what Crowley is, but he still can’t bring himself to kill the bugger. Dean’s seen Crowley at his most human, too, after the Trials. But Crowley’s also now on Dean’s list, same as Benny was, of People Who Tried To Save Cas. He’s shown up time and again to help, even though yeah, most of the time it was also in HIS interest to help. Like “un-demonizing” Dean in 10.03. Giving Cas a shot of stolen angel grace to recharge his mojo was a part of that. And convincing Cas to oust Lucifer was almost entirely prompted by the pinched situation Crowley’s found himself in since Luci had been keeping him as a pet… so.
>>> 
>>> What was the point of this? AH! Right. How Dean reacts differently to “friends” and to Cas being hurt. I thought this was bad enough in 11.03:
>>> 
>>> And that was right after Cas had been throwing Dean around like a rag doll while under the attack dog spell. But then, after 15 “Cas! CAS! CASTIEL! CAAAAAAAS!” outbursts in 11.18, combined with this:
>>> 
>>> I mean, that’s not a HEY MY BUDDY MY PAL U OKIE DOKEY IN THERE? kind of look there. But that’s just my reading of it. Gah, I’m tearing up a little just looking at the damn gif. Better finish this up.
>>> 
>>> Yeah, I have no idea what’s actually in store for us, but really, whatever it is is going to be emotionally significant. 
>> 
>> You’ve amazingly contrasted the emotional difference with Dean’s regard to his bro-friends and his more-than-bro friend, but let me add another angle. Benny and Castiel were contrasted purposefully during season eight in many, many different ways, and one of the most blatant examples is that  **Dean watched both Benny and Castiel emerge from the washroom**  all cleaned up and ready to go. Both scenes were even sandwiched between Purgatory flashbacks, so the composition was very similar.
>> 
>> In _ **Blood Brother**_  Dean initially has his back to the washroom and then turns,  frowns and says “Wow, you look okay.“ His tone is pretty flat. A thing to also note is that Sam is not in the room with them, they are perfectly alone. Dean gets back to business just as soon as Benny’s cleaned up, starts working the case.
>> 
>>   
>    
> 
>> 
>> The scene could not be more different from that in  ** _A Little Slice of Kevin_**  where Dean is  _struck dumb._ Dean has no control over his face or over his limbs, he does not know what to even do with himself. 
>> 
>> Not only is Dean  _not_  ready to get right back to business after having seen Castiel emerge from the washroom – this is the part we rarely talk about with regards to the scene: Dean, immediately following the scene,  **removed himself from the motel room**. He went outside, for a walk, to get a breath of fresh air, to get a six-pack of beer. And despite all this, despite having removed himself from the scene, when he gets back to the motel he still wants to  _devour_  the angel. 
>> 
>> I want to emphasize this again: Dean  _walked away from the situation to calm himself_ , and he’s still clearly, visibly affected up to a twenty minutes later.
>> 
>> The two scenes are meant to be paralleled. One of these things its not like the other. 
>> 
>> Benny was Dean’s blood brother, his comrade in arms. Benny was as close to Dean as one man can be to another – platonically. Benny was there to show the audience that Castiel is not – that. Castiel is not Dean’s blood brother, he’s not Dean’s comrade in arms. He’s not Dean’s friend. He’s something other.
> 
> *CLEAN CLOTHES
> 
> HE WANDERED OUT HEALED IN  **CLEAN**  CLOTHES
> 
> I FUCKED UP

Don’t worry, I noticed at least three typos in my original post just now, and I swear I proof-read it before I posted it too. :P

But yes. All of this. And Cas is casually wiping his hands on a small towel as if he’d just washed his hands in the sink, while Benny’s rubbing down his head and face with a large bath towel as if he’d just stepped out of the shower. I think that further contrasts the two reactions, yes?

Source: [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/143196166045/damn-you-only-got-pt-2-shit-i-cant-even)

Reblogged from [elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/143209684393/damn-you-only-got-pt-2-shit-i-cant-even)

 

 

[spn 8.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.05) [spn 8.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.07) [spn s8](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s8) [benny!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/benny%21) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels)

 

 

 

 

Mar 12, 2016

1,511 notes

[angelswatchingover](http://angelswatchingover.tumblr.com/post/140930892437):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/140815845500):
>
>> [winjennster](http://winjennster.tumblr.com/post/140813682029):
>>
>>> [girly-fanatic](http://girly-fanatic.tumblr.com/post/140807020939):
>>>
>>>> [dennyismydestiel](http://dennyismydestiel.tumblr.com/post/140769119123):
>>>>
>>>>> [winjennster](http://winjennster.tumblr.com/post/140752413219):
>>>>>
>>>>>> Even if it was utterly one sided and unrequited, you will never, ever convince me that Benny Lafitte wasn’t completely and hopelessly in love with Dean Winchester.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yeah.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yeah.
>>>>> 
>>>>> So freaking in love.
>>>> 
>>>> And Dean broke his fucking heart.
>>> 
>>> OH god he did.
>> 
>> And there was nothing Benny could do about it, because he knew what Dean was about before he ever decided to step in and save Dean that first time in Purgatory. Dean had already earned his reputation as The Human, the creature that shouldn’t even BE in purgatory but was still slashing his way through every monster that crossed his path in the name of finding his angel. Benny already knew.
>> 
>> Maybe at first he could’ve thought it was because Dean’s a loyal and noble guy. Benny may have seen it like Dean was the platoon leader who refused to leave his man behind no matter what. It was honorable. In Benny’s eyes, that would be a man worth knowing, a man he could trust to have his back. Benny could honor that.
>> 
>> But then they fought together, and Benny watched Dean. Watched him look monster after monster in the eye and ask that one question.  _Where’s the angel?_  And then coldly dispatch his victims when he got the answer.
>> 
>> Benny had Dean’s back, and Dean had his, and they grew to trust and even like each other, but it wouldn’t have taken long for Benny to see just how singular Dean’s focus was.
>> 
>> And then they found Cas, crouched by that river. And Benny stood back and watched, and then he got it. Dean might fight for him, but this weird little angel dude? Dean would die for him a thousand times. He’d spend an eternity in purgatory fighting to bring him home. This was something far more than loyalty or honor or friendship.
> 
> I feel like just about everyone who comes in contact with Dean falls in love with him in some way. There is something special and almost irresistible about the Righteous Man. He’s got everyone from billion year old angels, to Kings of Hell, to Death himself falling over themselves at his request. 

Source: [winjennster](https://winjennster.tumblr.com/post/140752413219/even-if-it-was-utterly-one-sided-and-unrequited)

Reblogged from [chiwalker](http://chiwalker.tumblr.com/post/140931292311/angelswatchingover-mittensmorgul)

 

 

[oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [benny!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/benny%21) [i think that sums it up tidily there EVERYONE falls a little bit in love with dean there's just something about him wonder what it could be](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-think-that-sums-it-up-tidily-there-EVERYONE-falls-a-little-bit-in-love-with-dean-there%27s-just-something-about-him-wonder-what-it-could-be)


	142. Chapter 142

[Sep 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165451221485/situations-in-s6-in-which-dean-prayed-to-cas-for)

32 notes

Situations in s6 in which Dean prayed to Cas for help (and the two times that Sam tricked Cas into helping… these episodes are marked with *) (oh, and also that handful of times that Cas’s war spilled all over Sam and Dean in ways they never asked for, and he STILL refused to tell them what the heckeroo was going on anyway…these episodes are marked with **):

**6.03** : Three police officers are dead in what appear to be small-scale recreations of the Plagues of Egypt. Because of the “biblical” nature of these deaths, it’s logical that they would want to talk to someone who, you know,  _witnessed_  the original Plagues of Egypt for advice.

It’s noted that Cas hadn’t spoken to either Dean or Sam  _in over a year_  despite Sam having prayed repeatedly to Cas after he “mysteriously” returned from the Cage. It’s also noted that the entire case involved another angel trading Heaven’s weapons to people in exchange for their souls. Enter Balthazar, old friend and ally of Castiel, and his cache of stolen “nukes.” Also enter Raphael, general antagonist who is anti-human and pro-apocalypse. Both Balthazar and Cas flap off to points unknown without giving Sam and Dean any further info about what the heck is going on.

**6.06** : Sam and Dean believe that they may have stumbled across another of those Heavenly Weapons, Gabriel’s Horn of Truth, and Dean prays to Cas to let him know. It turns out it’s NOT Gabriel’s Horn, and Cas flaps off after a short conversation with Dean. Dean is upset because he’d apparently been praying to Cas for days, and Cas only bothered to show up when he thought Dean had one of the Heaven Weapons. As far as we know, Cas and Dean haven’t seen one another since 6.03. All Cas tells Dean is that “I’m at war. Certain… regrettable things are now required of me.” This is not new information for Dean, and leaves Dean feeling just as frustrated over wanting to HELP Cas with his problems. Cas tells Dean he’ll “make inquiries” about what might be wrong with Sam, but tells Dean he has no information for him now.

**6.07** : After Dean gets confirmation that something is  _seriously_  wrong with Sam from Veritas in 6.06 after spending six episodes growing ever more suspicious that Sam “popped outta hell wrong,” including Sam  _letting Dean be turned into a vampire so they’d have an “in” to kill the entire nest and hopefully capture the Alpha,_  he calls in Cas, desperate to get a concrete diagnosis and make sure that what came back from the cage was really Sam. Cas diagnoses Sam’s complete lack of a soul, and goes with the Winchesters to Samuel’s compound to see if Samuel (who was resurrected around the same time Sam was) suffered from a similar problem. Cas confirms Samuel still has a soul, and then flaps off without any further explanation of what the heck’s going on.

It’s noted that this is the episode where we learn what Samuel is up to with the Alphas, and that he’s working for Crowley to discover the location of Purgatory. Crowley implies that he can return Sam’s soul, but only in exchange for the Winchesters’ help in capturing the Alphas. With no other hope of retrieving Sam’s soul, they’re kinda screwed into working for Crowley.

***6.10** : When Meg captures the Winchesters and demands information on Crowley’s location, Sam makes a deal with her. They’ll help her take Crowley down, in exchange for her help getting some information out of Crowley first. Sam wants Crowley to tell him how to get his soul back, and tells Dean they’ll just kill Meg and her goon demons when they’re through… but Sam, still completely soulless, knows they’ll need some help.

This time it’s SAM (without Dean’s knowledge) who “tricks” Cas into showing up (making him think they’ve run across another of those stolen Heaven Weapons from 6.03). He essentially DEMANDS that Cas help him, because Cas “owes” him, Sam threatens to “hunt you down and kill you” if Cas refuses to help him now. Sam then proceeds to lie to Dean about how he convinced Cas to stay and help, framing it as a gesture of friendship… >.>

Sam overhears Cas FINALLY giving Dean some actual information about the state of Sam’s missing soul, that just happens to sound pretty horrifying… and Sam decides he might not even want his soul back. The fact that Cas believes Sam’s soul is a lost cause, and that Sam’s soul eternally suffering in the cage with Lucifer is an acceptable fate, is frankly disturbing in itself.

Cas ends up banished and Samuel tries to feed Sam and Dean to ghouls, but they both escape/survive, rescue Meg, and capture Crowley. Crowley confirms he can’t return Sam’s soul and seems to back up Cas’s fears about doing so. Cas shows back up (nice timing) with what he claims are Crowley’s bones, which he supposedly burns. Cas agrees to dismantle Crowley’s collection of caged monsters.

(From what we learn later, that Cas DIDN’T torch Crowley’s bones, and that Cas was the one responsible for abandoning Sam’s soul to that eternal torture in the first place even if it had been entirely accidental, AND that Cas was in cahoots with Crowley and his plans for Purgatory all along… his horrific guilt over EVERYTHING that happened in 6.10 combined with the fact that he STILL didn’t confess any of it to Sam or Dean… and Cas is STILL desperately trying to fix ALL of this… he’s got to be feeling even more isolated and burdened and helpless to make any of it work out. And to think all of this is the result of him missing that first sign more than a year ago, that something was ~very wrong~ with Sam when he first brought him back from hell… Cas just needed a win… and he kept doubling down on every losing hand all season long)

***6.12** : After Dean restores Sam’s soul, Cas swings by to examine him. He tells Dean that he’s not sure if Sam will ever wake up, because of the damage to his soul, then leaves again. Later, Sam prays to Cas and tricks him into giving him answers.

****6.15** : After Balthazar shows up and throws Sam and Dean into an alternate reality without warning and against their will, Dean tries praying to Cas for help but it doesn’t work in that universe. They manage to find their own way back, when Cas shows up to make a threat display to Raphael, then boops Sam and Dean back to Bobby’s. After being used as bait and telling them he’d have done the same thing if Balthazar hadn’t, Cas reminds them that he must win against Raphael, and Dean shouts back that they KNOW that, but that’s ALL they know. Dean is tired of being yanked around by a situation he literally knows nothing about, and again Cas refuses to tell them anything more before he flounces yet again.

****6.17** : The entire episode takes place in an altered timeline in which the Titanic never sank, and Atropos was trying to clean up the resulting mess by killing all the descendants of the survivors who never should’ve been born. They discover Balthazar was behind it (him again).  _They never once pray to Cas for help on this one._  Sam and Dean are literally frozen in time in the background with a huge air conditioner thing about to land on them and crush them, as Cas, Balthazar, and Atropos work out their issues. They talk about how Cas is trying to “make power” for himself by creating souls to “power his war machine.” In the end when Cas “allows them” to remember the alternate timeline they experienced, he flat-out lies to them about why it had happened at all (nothing about souls or war machines, blaming the deaths on Fate), and blaming the entire alternate timeline on Balthazar for hating that Celine Dion song. Then he disappears before they can ask any more questions. (he was acting  _really_  shifty there too…)

**6.18** : Dean prays to Cas because they’ve finally found a weapon that can destroy Eve (aka the creature they believe is the season’s Big Bad), but the only way to GET the weapon is to travel back to 1861 when what was apparently the last living Phoenix was killed by Samuel Colt with his nifty magic gun. Cas’s lieutenant Rachel shows up instead and delivers this infamous line:

**RACHEL** I think you call him when you need something. We’re fighting a war.  
 **SAM** We get that.  
 **RACHEL** Clearly you don’t, or you wouldn’t call him every time you stub your toe, you petty, entitled little pie–  
 **CASTIEL** Rachel. That’s enough.

Out of context it really makes very little sense. We know Cas has barely been in contact with Sam and Dean all season long. Every time he’s seen them he’s been rushed to get back to his war. Yet Rachel seems to think he’s been flitting off to help them out constantly… hmmmm. I WONDER WHERE HE’S BEEN FLITTING OFF TO CONSTANTLY?! (I mean… he’s got this entire secret plan going with Crowley that he’s keeping from EVERYDAMNONE so maybe…) Cas cuts her off and dismisses her before she can say anything else, but she’s suspicious enough about Cas’s dismissal there that she does a little digging…

Cas sends Sam and Dean to the past and gives them a 24 hour window until he fetches them home. Meanwhile, Rachel’s digging has uncovered a TERRIBLE TRUTH about what Cas has been up to. THIS INFORMATION IS STILL BEING KEPT FROM US, THE AUDIENCE, BUT POST 6.20 WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT RACHEL UNCOVERED CAS’S ENTIRE PLAN. And to understand that he hadn’t just been lying to the Winchesters, but even to his closest lieutenants, about the entire Purgatory plan, Crowley, everything.

He’d presumably been telling Rachel that he’d been “helping the Winchesters” while he’d been off working on the Crack Purgatory With Crowley plan. THAT’S WHERE HER BASELESS ACCUSATION AGAINST SAM AND DEAN CAME FROM.

**RACHEL** Castiel, I’ve been hearing things. Things I don’t want to believe. Just tell me if it’s true.  
 **CASTIEL** If what’s true?  
 **RACHEL** You know. Your dirty little secret.  
 **CASTIEL** I have to defeat Raphael.  
 **RACHEL** Not this way, Castiel.  
 **CASTIEL** Rachel.  
 **RACHEL** We put our faith in you, and…look what you’re turning into.  
 **CASTIEL** I don’t have a choice.  
 **RACHEL** Then neither do I. (Rachel stabs Castiel with her blade)

Cas is forced to kill her, and then hides at Bobby’s. He’s too weak to bring Sam and Dean back, but Bobby offers the power of his own soul to give Cas the energy to save them. Just when they think they’ve failed, the package shows up from Samuel Colt with the bottle of phoenix ash, and suddenly they’re hopeful again that they can defeat Eve.

**6.19** : Cas, get outta my ass… (BOY OH BOY HE SHOWED UP FAST! I mean, like he was standing right there all along and just had to un-invisible himself or something… like we see him do in the very next episode.. so maybe he WAS watching over the Winchesters some of the time he’d been telling Rachel he was, but  _they_ certainly didn’t know about it.) Now that they have a weapon that can kill Eve, they need to know where she actually is. Cas can’t sense her because she’s blocked him, but he brings the vampire Lenore from 2.03, because she CAN sense Eve. She gives up the information and then begs them to kill her (Cas obliges, to everyone’s horror). He then boops everyone to Eve’s location and immediately realizes that she’s also blocking his powers, so regardless he’s stuck there until Eve is dealt with.

(pause for the horrifying interlude where Sam and Dean are so “desperate for a win” they fall into Eve’s trap with her “perfect monster” that even hunters (and even ANGELS can’t detect… and Cas horrifyingly torturing a guy for info on Eve’s location… and Cas put into a situations where he’s defaulting to torturing people– bearing in mind he brought Dean in to torture Alistair in 4.16, Cas has fallen a looooong way since then– will become relevant again in 6.22 so keep this in mind)

Eve reveals that Crowley is still alive (instigating everyone’s suspicions about Cas again, and if that means Cas has been lying to them), and  _we_ get confirmation at the end of the episode that Cas and Crowley are working together (and have been all along).

(AN: Looking at the season-long arc as if it were a cop drama, Eve getting taken down with three episodes left to go proves she was a red herring. Sam and Dean, up to this point, believed she was the Big Bad. But the audience should certainly know better by now…)

****6.20** : *cries forever* All the betrayal comes into the light. Even Dean can’t defend Cas after this. Cas shows up unasked for in Dean’s car, tells him he has no idea how Crowley is still alive and that he has no idea where Crowley is currently. Then boops directly to Crowley’s lab… >.>

We see that Cas has been hanging around the Winchesters, invisible, ignoring their prayers, “But I didn’t go to them…Because I knew they would have questions I couldn’t answer…Because I was afraid.“ 

But then he’s compelled to reveal himself, in order to save Bobby, Sam, and Dean… after which Dean again comes to his defense. “Wonders never cease. They trusted me again. But it was just another lie.”

***6.21** : Sam summons Balthazar to question him about Cas’s involvement with Crowley after demons kidnapped Lisa and Ben to keep Dean from interfering in Crowley’s plans. Cas had demanded that Crowley not hurt Sam and Dean, so instead Crowley went after people Dean cared about. Balthazar confronts Cas, tries to talk him out of his plans, and then agrees to play “double agent” for Sam and Dean.

Sam then prays to Cas on Dean’s behalf, because Dean’s going off the rails torturing demons for info on Lisa and Ben’s whereabouts. Crowley told Dean to stand down and not interfere with his plans, and Lisa and Ben would be fine. Dean refused. Cas makes the same deal with Dean, stand down and not interfere, and he’d retrieve Lisa and Ben when they’ve completed their plan. Of course Dean refuses, because that’s the same offer Crowley had made him.

“Dean, I do everything that you ask. I always come when you call. And I am your friend.“ Well, Cas, one outta three ain’t exactly great in Dean’s book here… He has NO IDEA the extent you’ve suffered in the name of your “friendship” with him over the last year and a half or so… Cas tried to give Dean peace when all Dean had ever fought for was freedom. Cas has done all of this just to keep Dean safe, and Dean never asked for ANY of it. And with the situations that Cas’s choices have brought down on all of them, Dean’s got no peace anyway. Ask him any day, and Dean will ALWAYS choose freedom. Which means not being lied to, not being betrayed, not having his choices taken away from him in the name of some false sense of peace (helloooo “paradise” parallel).

Balthazar agrees to take Sam and Dean to where Lisa and Ben are being held, and the rescue mission goes sideways when Lisa is possessed by a demon. Cas suspects where the Winchesters learned their location and confronts Balthazar. Rachel uncovered his true plan in 6.18, and Cas killed her for it. Balthazar discovered his true plan here, and Cas killed him for it. But he was unwilling to kill Sam and Dean. He’d done all of this to protect Dean in the first place, but the deeper he dug, the more danger he’d inadvertently heaped on them.

He offers Dean the only sort of “peace” he has left, wiping Lisa and Ben’s memories of Dean. THIS IS POSSIBLY THE WORST THING EVER. OMG. This is the lengths Cas was willing to go to in order to give Dean that peace…

****6.22** : And the piece de resistance. The crowning moment of Cas’s utter downfall. He broke Sam’s wall in a last-ditch effort to MAKE Dean stand down and let him crack Purgatory. He helped Crowley torture Eleanor Visyak for the information on the ritual to break into Purgatory. He then breaks his deal with Crowley. Crowley returns having made a deal with Raphael, but it’s too late. Cas has already done the ritual, gained the power of the Purgatory souls, and explodes Raphael. Crowley flees. Dean begs Cas to put the souls back now that he’s defeated Raphael, and Cas refuses (because he’s really  _really_  not entirely himself with not only all the monster souls inside him, but the Leviathan as well…).

**BONUS: *7.01** : Even DEATH tells Cas he’s a walking time bomb, and that he MUST return the souls. HE LITERALLY MOVES THE DAMN MOON TO MAKE IT POSSIBLE. Cas rapidly loses control under the influence of all that power and FINALLY comes when Sam, EVEN SUFFERING WITH HIS BROKEN WALL, prays to Cas, “Hey, Castiel. Um… Maybe this is pointless. Look… I don’t know if any part of you even cares, but, um, I still think you’re one of us, deep down. I mean, way, way, way off the reservation, but… Look, we still have till dawn to stop this. Let us help. Please.”

SAM was the one, after EVERYTHING, who begged Cas to let them help him, and he finally did admit he needed help. In those few minutes between returning the souls and the Leviathan taking over, Cas’s only concern was admitting his guilt, admitting to Dean that he’d been wrong, and repeatedly assuring Dean that he would find some way to redeem himself. And then it’s too late…

* * *

Now that we’ve covered all the stubbed toes and papercuts that Cas was summoned to fix for no reason in s6, lets take a brief look at the sorts of things Sam and Dean dealt with on their own, without summoning an angelic assist:

**6.01** : After a year at Lisa’s, desperately trying to research a way to save Sam from Hell and trying to live up to Sam’s dying wish for him, a group of djinn shows up and targets Dean. He learns that Sam’s been alive for a year and neither Sam nor Bobby bothered to tell him.

**6.02** : Sam calls Dean for help while he’s working a shapeshifter case and finds himself saddled with a baby… who turns out to be a baby shapeshifter. When Daddy Shapeshifter comes knocking looking for his baby, and none of the standard weapons work on the Alpha, things go very very sideways very very fast. Still, they don’t call for Cas.

**6.04** : The monsters are all out of whack, but Bobby’s trying to reclaim his soul from the “loan” he’d made to Crowley in order to get Death’s location in order to stop the Apocalypse. Dean is equally concerned about what the heck’s wrong with Sam, but they help Bobby find Crowley’s bones and hold them for ransom until Crowley releases Bobby’s soul. Funny they didn’t even need an angelic assist on any of that…

**6.05** : DEAN IS LITERALLY TURNED INTO A VAMPIRE. Kinda a little bit worse than a paper cut. Didn’t bother to phone Cas up for a quick healing.

**6.08** : Pressed into Crowley’s employ, thinking Crowley’s still got Sam’s soul, they discover the packs of skinwalkers that have infiltrated towns across the country and are growing in numbers. They kill this town’s pack, but the threat that there are more hidden everywhere looms large. Apparently that’s not something they think Cas needs to help with.

**6.09** : Dean is literally abducted by fairies and taken to a faerie realm. When he escapes, they set a Red Cap after him, while Sam has to find the banishing spell to send the faeries all back to their realm before they can kill Dean. Even soulless, Sam pulls it off without having to call Cas for help.

**6.11** : Dean bargains with Death, desperate to retrieve Sam’s soul and tired of being at Crowley’s mercy and getting no help from Cas or anyone else on how to help Sam. He learns a bit about Cosmic Consequences, and Death gives him a vaguely unhelpful warning about the dangerous road Cas is going down and hints that it’s about the Souls. Meanwhile, Sam is desperate to keep his soul from being returned, and gets advice from Balthazar that leads him to attempt to kill Bobby. None of this is apparently alarming enough for anyone to consider giving Cas a quick lil shoutout.

**6.13** : Against everyone’s advice, Sam starts “scratching the wall,” and uncovering memories of his soulless year. We learn some of the horrifying things he did (Sam’s horrified, Dean’s horrified, we see Samuel was horrified, the audience was horrified by giant spider people…), and still they don’t need Cas for this one.

**6.14** : ehhhh, a simple salt and burn… kinda-sorta… even when everything goes sideways, Dean nearly gets run down by his own ghost-possessed  ~~sex doll~~  car, and the haunted item in question is a woman’s transplanted kidney that her sister’s still using, they don’t think to call Cas to maybe help deal with the haunted kidney situation. In this case, it may actually have saved said woman’s life, but whatever. They couldn’t have known until it was too late anyway.

**6.16** : The monster situation is coming to a head, leaving a trail of victims so obvious that MULTIPLE hunters independently converge on Eve’s location, almost as if they’ve all been lured there like the “victims” in a certain Agatha Christie novel… ANYWAY, they find themselves trapped in a situation where it’s impossible to know who’s possessed by the monster worm, when calling Cas could’ve solved all their problems with a quick lil boop-n-smite, but no. They deal with Eve’s special monster spawn on their own, losing Samuel, Gwen, and Rufus along the way. *cue horrific guilt*

* * *

For anyone who is still somehow confused about season six, this is why our tongue-in-cheek tag for the season is “we don’t talk about season six.” Not because we shouldn’t talk about it, but because nothing was beautiful and everything hurt.

Cas proved to be the season’s true Big Bad. But it wasn’t because he set out on some evil plot to ruin everything. It all started for one simple reason: Dean had lost almost everything to give the entire world freedom, and Cas wanted to give him peace as well. That conversation at the end of 5.22, “Which would you rather have, peace or freedom?” Cas realized in that moment that in winning for Free Will and stopping the apocalypse, Dean would never have peace, and in trying to save the one tiny bit of peace Dean did have, he nearly destroyed the world again anyway…

Yes, Cas’s plan “worked.” Raphael died. The second apocalypse was averted. BUT AT WHAT COST?! *cue the Leviathan and a fate at least as devastating as the apocalypse* So no, it really wasn’t a win. Cas hasn’t won. He hadn’t been right. He’d ignored every warning sign begging him to turn back, begging him to stop (and not just from Dean– from Balthazar, Rachel, Atropos, and even Death). All because he’d fallen so deep and painted himself into that corner, all because he didn’t go to Dean way back when on that day he watched him raking leaves. And then he was too afraid and too ashamed of everything he’d done along the way to turn back, to ask for Dean’s help, to even  _tell_  Dean what was really going on and just how bad the situation was.

Who knows if they could’ve found another way. Maybe there really wasn’t another way. But at that point it was moot. Dean (and Sam) had given him endless opportunities to help him, or even just to listen to what he was going through and offer their support, and at every turn he chose to lie to them, to betray their trust to ignore them when they called on him, and to hide from them. All in the name of doing everything to protect them both, to keep them safe. Which (by the time he broke Sam’s wall) had been narrowed down to protecting Dean alone… all the while Dean never wanted Cas to sacrifice himself that way. Dean never wanted to be “protected” from Cas’s difficulties. He would’ve eagerly helped Cas, the same way Cas had always helped HIM.

Maybe we really need to start talking more about season six. Though I’m fine if we can all collectively ignore the spiders, the haunted kidney, and the weird dog episode. Aside from those, there’s a hell of a lot of important stuff that seems to have been conveniently forgotten or ignored that lays the groundwork for every bit of Cas’s personal growth that happens after his return in 7.17.

 

 

[we don't talk about season six](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/we-don%27t-talk-about-season-six) [spn s6](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s6) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [sam fucking winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-fucking-winchester) [crowley](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/crowley) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [because this is really and truly the beginning of that story](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-this-is-really-and-truly-the-beginning-of-that-story) [without all of this ^^ nothing that comes after really holds water](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/without-all-of-this-%5E%5E-nothing-that-comes-after-really-holds-water) [THIS IS WHAT MAKES IT ALL SOOOO WORTH IT](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/THIS-IS-WHAT-MAKES-IT-ALL-SOOOO-WORTH-IT) [And why cas is STILL trying to get a win for dean and redeem himself to dean and why he spent a year in purgatory on the run](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/And-why-cas-is-STILL-trying-to-get-a-win-for-dean-and-redeem-himself-to-dean-and-why-he-spent-a-year-in-purgatory-on-the-run) [i was just gonna hold on to this post for a while but then i saw lizbob's long post from this morning and i thought this was relevant :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-was-just-gonna-hold-on-to-this-post-for-a-while-but-then-i-saw-lizbob%27s-long-post-from-this-morning-and-i-thought-this-was-relevant-%3AP)


	143. Chapter 143

[Sep 19, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165518303530/azazels-how-about-adding-a-little-spice-to-all)

91 notes

**Anonymous asked: Azazel's "how about adding a little spice to all that sugar" line to Dean about Cas just always gets me lol? Idk it's just one of my favorites and is really sweet even though it's coming from Azazel:P Cause I can't help but have the immediate thought of "so Cas is Dean's sugar? Awwww!!! <3" Because I do think that's been emphasized season after season. Cas is a little bit of sweetness and goodness in Dean's life. At times the only source of it.**

:D

Yeah, he’s a sweetie, but also pretty much all the spice Dean could ever ask for:

  


Sorry Cas, everything is already complicated. :P

But the very best thing about “Azazel’s” line you quoted there? IT WASN’T AZAZEL.

IT WAS DEAN’S DJINN VENOM INDUCED HALLUCINATION. DEAN’S OWN MIND WROTE THAT LINE FOR HIM.

(for reference, this was in 6.01, after Dean had been hallucinating all sorts of stuff, and hadn’t yet realized that he’d been poisoned by the djinn. His own mind conjured up that hallucination of Azazel, and when Dean tells “Azazel” that he can’t be real because he’s dead, “Azazel” replies:

**Azazel** : Yeah, kiddo. The big daddy brought your pal Cas back, right? So why not me? Add a little spice to all that – that sugar.

WHICH IS AWFUL. Dean hasn’t seen Cas  _for a year_  at this point. And yet  _this is the first thing Dean’s own subconscious dredges up to torment him with_. The fact that God resurrected Cas, so why couldn’t he also resurrect Azazel? If God could bring back “good things” (i.e. sugar, sweet things Dean wanted), and yet STILL Dean was left alone while Cas flapped off to play sheriff in Heaven as if Dean didn’t matter at all anymore… why not throw all the horrible things (like Azazel) back at him instead?

And really, isn’t that s6 in a nutshell from Dean’s pov?

 

 

[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [spn 6.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.01) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [we don't talk about season six](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/we-don%27t-talk-about-season-six)[someday I will be able to type the word 'thing' without it coming out 'think' or vice versa but today is not that day >.>](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/someday-I-will-be-able-to-type-the-word-%27thing%27-without-it-coming-out-%27think%27-or-vice-versa-but-today-is-not-that-day-%3E.%3E)


	144. Chapter 144

Sep 20, 2017

10 notes

I was watching 4.16 (immediately after watching 4.15, and then watching 4.17 and 4.18 for good measure…) and I think I just realized something. A lot of the recent meta I’ve read about s6 has been from the POV of comparing it to s12. Which, fine, okay. We’ve all been saying since the very beginning of s12 that it was shaping up like an s6 redux.

BUT. I see very little acknowledgment that everything in s6 sort of mirrors and deconstructs s4… which is what Lizbob’s long post the other day really got into with the killing past canon stuff.

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165517048120/elizabethrobertajones-the-most-meta-finale>

This post is sort of a meandering through those mirrors via this run of episodes in s4, setting up how they’re addressed from the opposite side of the road in s6, and sort of pointing and gesturing toward s12 waaaay off in the distance where these themes are beginning to meet in the middle.

So, under a cut, because I sorta ramble for like 3k words here… (aka, why can’t I write 3k of fic without batting an eyelash like I can plow through 3k of canon discussion? Ehhhhh…)

The end of the message of 4.15, in both Tessa’s speech to Dean about trusting his instincts and Pamela’s whispered words to Sam about how what he did to that demon isn’t a good thing like he thinks it is… These two exchanges are pretty much the essential takeaway of this entire episode:

**Tessa** : I’ve been around death from the get-go. You know what I see most? Lies. ‘He’s in a better place. At least they’re together now.’ You all lie to yourselves, Dean, 'cause like you said, deep down, you’re all scared. Stop lying to yourself, Dean.  
 **Dean** : What?  
 **Tessa** : The angels have something good in store for you. A second chance. Really? 'Cause I’m pretty sure, deep down, you know something nasty’s coming down the road. Trust your instincts, Dean. There’s no such thing as miracles.

And then Pamela’s dying words to Sam:

**Pamela** : I know what you did to that demon, Sam. I can feel what’s inside of you. If you think you have good intentions, think again.

* * *

Cas was SO CONFIDENT about his mission in 4.15, so sure he was following righteous orders, despite his doubts. Even at the beginning of 4.16 he’s sure it’s demons who are killing the angels. But we find out almost immediately after that that Cas has expressed hesitation in asking Dean to do “what needs to be done” and torture Alastair, and that it’s cost Cas his position as Uriel’s superior.

The entire scenario is not what it seems at first glance, though. It’s ALL a manipulation FOR CAS, arranged by Uriel. It’s an attempt to “win Cas over” to Lucifer’s service. When we first met Uriel in 4.07, Cas had been the one “in charge.” But we learn in 4.15 that Cas’s devotion to the mission has come into question, and that Cas is now the subordinate to Uriel. Why?

Uriel DEMANDS Dean follow his orders to torture Alastair for information on who is killing the angels. All the while, Uriel KNOWS who’s killing the angels all along– because it’s HIM. The entire “torture Alastair” program is a sideshow set up to hurt Dean and convince Cas that Heaven is corrupt– to win Cas over to Uriel’s (read: Lucifer’s) side.

(Side note to sort of gesture toward s12, and the “black and white” and “us vs them” themes… And a reminder that Dean now firmly occupies the “shades of grey” point of view. To Uriel, and to a lesser extent Cas, are very much in the “black and white” here. To Uriel there are only two sides here– Heaven or Hell, Michael or Lucifer. What his view leaves out completely is what lies in the middle. The shades of grey that encompass all of humanity who are the rope in this horrible tug of war between Heaven and Hell. Uriel wanted Cas to switch sides and pull for Lucifer, while Dean hoped to win Cas over to the middle… to all the rest of creation, to humanity and free will. Okay, back to our regularly scheduled meta…)

Yet despite Uriel’s demands, and Cas’s apologetic approach to convince him, Dean still insists on talking to Cas about this alone, to plead his case:

**DEAN** : What’s going on, Cas? Since when does Uriel put a leash on you.  
 **CASTIEL** : My superiors have begun to question my sympathies.  
 **DEAN** : Your sympathies?  
 **CASTIEL** : I was getting too close to the humans in my charge. You. They feel I’ve begun to express emotions. The doorways to doubt. This can impair my judgment.  
 **DEAN** : Well, tell Uriel, or whoever…you do not want me doing this, trust me.  
 **CASTIEL** : Want it, no. But I have been told we need it.  
 **DEAN** : You ask me to open that door and walk through it, you will not like what walks back out.  
 **CASTIEL** : For what it’s worth, I would give anything not to have you do this.

This is why it was THIS episode that first pinged my OOH THIS IS FREAKING INTERESTING sensors as to Dean and Cas’s relationship… not romantically, but in the “This is more important than Cas’s millions of years of obedient service to Heaven.” His “doubts” about Heaven’s mission are all sprouting from his connection to and association with Dean. Dean specifically addresses his objections to torturing Alastair TO CAS… as if he believes that Cas understands him in ways that Uriel clearly does not. Dean appeals TO CAS multiple times.

The whole, “You ask me to open that door and walk through it, you will not like what walks back out…” It sounds like a variation on the 10.14 warning Dean gives about killing whatever comes back out of the barn when he goes in to fight Cain… The similarities of these two situations is actually rather horrifying.

Alastair and Cain both had this similar “relationship” with Dean. Dean was Alastair’s “student” in Hell. Dean broke in Hell and picked up Alastair’s razor. Just as Dean “broke” in taking Cain’s Mark and picked up his blade. And the fact that he was manipulated into both of those situations by outside forces. Much like Sam in falling under the influence of Ruby and the power she offered him, and the demon blood. (And I’m now watching God Himself telling Sam the demon blood thing makes him “unsympathetic” and that he’s gotta know it’s wrong… aah, 4.18 looks so much more horrifying post s11.)

Much like Cas in s6 feeling like HE’S the only one who can take on this terrible burden…

Meanwhile back in 4.16 (and 4.18), Sam is ABSOLUTELY CONVINCED that Dean “isn’t strong enough” to do what needs to be done, much like Soulless Sam in s6 was convinced that he was just “better” than Dean at doing the job. Which is horrifying… There’s SO MUCH here in s4 that informs the tone of s6 that largely seems to get overlooked when looking at s6 backward from s12 without acknowledging where the problems of s6 even BEGAN.

(which, again, Lizbob was talking about in that post I linked back at the top, the meta level disowning of past canon in each new cycle of the narrative. It didn’t START in s6. S6 was the second go-around.)

The “Dean isn’t strong enough” thing is also really interesting for season 12 and them trying to find a healthy balance of leadership. Sam making decisions to work with the BMoL is waaaaay less extreme, but in season 4 it was essentially his rebellion from childhood thinking he should be a responsible adult now. That makes it sound really childish, but I think that was the unconscious motivation to it, that he thought Dean should let him grow up and make his own decisions. It just ended up conflating with the demon blood and his issues there of wanting to use his powers for better reasons.

And despite all the warnings and lies and the truth not coming out until it was really too late… Sam remains convinced he’s the ONLY one who can stop it all, and that he’s the ONLY one who sees the big picture here… (up to and including saying exactly that to Chuck, who– being Chuck– does nothing to disabuse Sam of that belief… *tries to stab 11.20 from inside this scene in 4.18*).

Much like Cas all through s6

*pauses to reassess all my life choices in committing to writing this all out, and utterly failing to do so in any semblance of a linear narrative*

*thanks [@cardinaleyes](https://tmblr.co/mKm4Z9oYYng53L5BJih9lQw) again for this thing of beauty*

*resumes typing anyway*

Back at 4.16 again, Anna comes to convince Cas that what he’s been ordered to do to Dean is WRONG. And Cas resists because Anna “fell” and Cas isn’t ready to do that yet. She’s still “a walking blasphemy” in the eyes of other angels, and Cas still can’t dissociate from Heaven and an eternity of believing his orders were just and right, despite his new doubts.

He’s scared. And Cas is so offended by Anna acting “unangellically.” But by the end of the episode, he gets proof that Heaven (or at least whoever’s been giving him his orders) has been lying to him, and yet he is still SO TORN.

His fear is not being angelic enough. Anna is stomping around doing all the things he can’t yet, like defying the rules, thinking for herself, smooching Dean… I mean, uh…  _forgiving_ Dean for “selling her out” to the other angels in order to protect Sam. Because falling from grace, in Anna’s words, is their “murder one.” Cas may be torn about following orders and he may be having doubts, but he’s not quite ready to commit that particular “crime” yet.

So Dean agrees to do what Heaven has demanded of him, which is essentially agreeing to torture HIMSELF because Cas asked him to, and because Cas sympathized and understood the gravity of what he was asking Dean to do. Of course, the entire thing is rigged from the start, by Uriel. Alastair escapes, and almost manages to kill Dean. Cas rushes in to save Dean, and stabs Alastair in the chest with the demon knife. He stands back to twist the knife in deeper. In defiance, Alastair pulls the demon knife out and drops it just like Cas did in 4.01… This is like the worst parallel…

So Dean had his turn at torture, then Cas did, and finally Sam “proves” that he’s the only one “strong enough” to get the job done. This is all terrible. The face Cas makes when Sam says, “I’m stronger than that now. Now I can kill” is just so telling. And how Cas looks at Sam afterward. Like he’s seeing just how WRONG Sam is for the first time.

  


Cas has been worried all season on behalf of Heaven, but he really didn’t know the extent of Sam’s extracurricular activities. I have a feeling Uriel did, because he wasn’t really working 100% on behalf of heaven. This whole episode sort of “proves” that Uriel knew more all along, because he was the one behind all the angel deaths. All along, he’d been manipulating Cas into switching teams, as it were. And all along, Cas has been considering switching teams himself, but not to Team Lucifer like Uriel had hoped.

Cas calls Anna about his crisis of faith and the “halo” light over Cas’s head flickers as he considers disobedience. His connection to Heaven, the surety that Heaven and his orders were righteous, is flickering as well. All Anna tells him is that it’s time to think for himself, so he investigates, and uncovers the truth.

Everything about this episode is so important for Cas, and largely informs his reasons for… pretty much everything he chooses to do in S6– from “thinking for himself” to going against “the will of Heaven” to his personal motivations for leaving Dean out of it and safe, and not dragging Dean back into another situation like he’d been forced into in 4.16. Which Dean came out of nearly broken again.

**CASTIEL** : It’s not blame that falls on you, Dean, it’s fate. The righteous man who begins it is the only one who can finish it. You have to stop it.  
 **DEAN** : Lucifer? The apocalypse? What does that mean? Hey! Don’t you go disappearing on me, you son of a bitch. What does that mean!  
 **CASTIEL** : I don’t know.  
 **DEAN** : Bull.  
 **CASTIEL** : I don’t. Dean, they don’t tell me much. I know our fate rests with you.  
 **DEAN** : Well, then you guys are screwed. I can’t do it, Cas. It’s too big. Alastair was right. I’m not all here. I’m not—I’m not strong enough. Well, I guess I’m not the man either of our dads wanted me to be. Find someone else. It’s not me.  
[DEAN begins to cry.]

In season six, Cas just… watches Dean rake leaves, knowing this whole cycle of bullshit and “destiny” is about to shake out again, and he’s ready to do ANYTHING in order to keep from doing THIS^^ to Dean again. IT’S ALL A TRAGEDY FROM THE HUMAN PERSPECTIVE.

So Cas discovers Uriel’s true plans, that his true allegiance isn’t to Heaven anymore. Uriel nearly kills Cas as Cas tells Uriel that he still serves God, Cas is still loyal to God… but it’s Anna who saves him.

**CASTIEL** : You can’t win, Uriel. I still serve God.  
 **URIEL** : You haven’t even met the man. There is no will. No wrath. No God.[Between each phrase, URIEL punches CASTIEL. The last time, he raises his fist and is stabbed through the neck from behind.]  
 **ANNA** : Maybe. Or maybe not. But there’s still me.  
[ANNA pulls out URIEL’s sword. Uriel is dead.]

In that moment, Anna puts herself in the place of god– the “walking blasphemy,” both angel and human, possessed of free will. After telling Cas to think for himself and he immediately asked her what he should do. Free will replaces following orders.

The other day I wrote meta about [4.03, and Cas’s instructions to Dean that he must “stop it.”](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165370572960/rewatching-403-and-feeling-the-sense-of) And that theme is still going strong even in 4.16, and in 4.17. Cas understands he’s pinning this huge responsibility on Dean because of “fate.” And Zachariah turns around at the end of 4.17 with the same sentiment, just from a far less sympathetic perspective… >.> (also that whole, “not lying, just avoiding certain truths to manipulate you” bs that Uriel had been doing to Cas all through 4.16, and that we understand from later revelations is essentially what Zachariah is doing to Dean in that final scene of 4.17)

**ZACHARIAH** : To prove to you that the path you’re on is truly in your blood. You’re a hunter. Not because your dad made you, not because God called you back from hell, but because it is what you are. And you love it. You’ll find your way to it in the dark every single time and you’re miserable without it. Dean, let’s be real here. You’re good at this. You’ll be successful. You will stop it.  
 **DEAN** : Stop what? The apocalypse, huh? Lucifer? What? Be specific, man.  
 **ZACHARIAH** : You’ll do everything you’re destined to do. All of it. But I know, I know. You’re not strong enough. You’re scared. You got daddy issues. You can’t do it. Right?  
 **DEAN** : Angel or not, I will stab you in your face.  
 **ZACHARIAH** : All I’m saying is it’s how you look at it. Most folks live and die without moving anything more than the dirt it takes to bury them. You get to change things.  
[DEAN turns away.]  
 **ZACHARIAH** : Save people, maybe even the world. All the while you drive a classic car and fornicate with women. This isn’t a curse. It’s a gift. So for God’s sakes, Dean, quit whining about it. Look around. There are plenty of fates worse than yours. So are you with me? You wanna go steam yourself another latte? Or are you ready to stand up and be who you really are?

But it wasn’t fate at all, it was all so carefully planned and orchestrated by Heaven and Hell. Well, I mean, they were orchestrating all these events to match up to “prophecy.” Which was the same reason Raphael wanted to restart it all in s6. I mean, the whole reason Cas went to war in the first place was to stop all this “fate” from landing on Dean again the moment he’d gotten out from under it all at the end of 5.22. Even with Cas embracing free will over destiny, he still didn’t understand that taking the choice to be involved at all out of Dean’s hands was just as much of a violation of Dean’s free will as forcing him or manipulating him to become involved again as he had been in s4.

And poor Dean just went through this crisis of guilt at the end of 4.16, feeling like it was all too much for him, that it was all his fault, and that he couldn’t do what Heaven needed him to, that they needed to find another guy… And then suddenly he’s in a snazzy business suit and laughing about the gym and the latest project runway and his fad diets… 4.17. What a jarring contrast.

Which makes Cas’s choices in 4.18 all the more jaw-dropping. Well, Dean’s choices as well:

**DEAN** : Well, I feel stupid doing this. But… I am fresh out of options. So please. I need some help. I’m praying, okay? Come on. Please.  
 **CASTIEL** : Prayer is a sign of faith. This is a good thing, Dean.  
 **DEAN** : So does that mean you’ll help me?  
 **CASTIEL** : I’m not sure what I can do.  
 **DEAN** : Drag Sam out of here, now. Before Lilith shows up.  
 **CASTIEL** : It’s a prophecy. I can’t interfere.

Dean PRAYS TO CAS. Which is groundbreaking enough in itself, but Cas explains why he’s powerless to change the course of destiny. And yet…

**CASTIEL** : You must understand why I can’t intercede. Prophets are very special. They’re protected.  
 **DEAN** : I get that.  
 **CASTIEL** : If anything threatens a prophet, anything at all, an archangel will appear to destroy that threat. Archangels are fierce. They’re absolute. They’re heaven’s most terrifying weapon.  
 **DEAN** : And these archangels, they’re tied to prophets?  
 **CASTIEL** : Yes.  
 **DEAN** : So if a prophet was in the same room as a demon –  
 **CASTIEL** : Then the most fearsome wrath of heaven would rain down on that demon. Just so you understand… why I can’t help.  
 **DEAN** : Thanks, Cas.  
 **CASTIEL** : Good luck.

And thus we have Cas’s very first tentative step across the line from obedience to thinking for himself. And the ABSOLUTE NECESSITY of his utter downfall in s6. From ABSOLUTE OBEDIENCE in the very beginning of his narrative journey, to the absolute opposite extreme in s6. NEITHER extreme is ultimately correct or viable or good. His reluctance to disobey orders and veer from destiny in s4 (and later his brainwashing by Heaven to enforce his obedience to those orders, and his eventual rejection of fate in 4.22) results in his abject failure on Dean’s behalf. His extreme self-reliance to the exclusion of everyone else in the name of his own PERSONAL free will in s6 results in abject failure on Dean’s behalf, as well.

But it also leads to the most epic journey of self-discovery and understanding that Cas embarks on post s7, that he’s still on now in s12.

 

 

[spn 4.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.15) [spn 4.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.16) [spn 4.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.17) [spn 4.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.18) [spn s6](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s6) [we don't talk about season six](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/we-don%27t-talk-about-season-six) [spn 11.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.20) [spn 10.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.14) [that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester)


	145. Chapter 145

[Oct 10, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166259633435/12-i-just-cant-get-over-how-sweet-dean-is-to)

407 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 I just can't get over how sweet Dean is to Cas. Like, Dean has shown numerous times towards numerous people that he is actually a very kind, loving person, but idk, character study wise, it's just so interesting to see how he is with Cas. He speaks so carefully and softy to him, and talks to/about Cas a certain way that's very different. "He's a weird, dorky little dude." Like, HUH?! Lol no, Cas is seen as a powerful force by everyone else but Dean.**

2/2 Not that Dean doesn’t acknowledge those things in Cas, but i think it just speaks to how Dean sees him. He’s protective of Cas in ways he definitely isn’t with other hunter pals, and even different from his protectiveness of Sam, which in the past was framed as a parent/child protectiveness. I just really love how Dean is towards Cas okay?!  
  


SAME. I mean, the way Dean talks about Cas… Charlie’s impression of Cas was that he was “helpful and dreamy.” Not “useful and smitey and badass” or whatever. She thought he’d be smaller when they eventually met face to face, possibly because of the way Dean has always talked about Cas– nerd angel, and all that. :P

And that’s NOT a new thing. Dean’s been talking about Cas that way for ages. And Charlie read the books. So when she does talk to Dean about Cas, she KNOWS Dean’s pov on Cas, despite all the badass, smitey, powerful stuff Cas does in the books.

Around Cas, though, even Dean himself goes a little bit squishy…

  


Cas is pretty much the only one he lets get away with cracking back at him like this. Almost anyone else he’d at least throw out a half-assed retort (you’re the short bus… short bus, or the like :P), but with Cas he just turns to pudding. :)

  

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	146. Chapter 146

[Oct 10, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166267649895/cas-is-the-only-one-that-gets-away-with-cracking)

23 notes

**Anonymous asked: "Cas is the only one that gets away with cracking back like that." You know, Dean let's Cas get away with A LOT, come to think of it. Didn't Dean bring this up once and Sam simply replied "Because it's Cas." And Sam was the one that had to stab godstiel because Dean just couldn't bring himself to do it. Seems like Dean makes a lot of exceptions for Cas, including forgiving him for hurting Sam. Who else has Dean been this way about?!**

YES. 8.22. When Sam and Dean were looking for the footage of the Demon Cure (and discovered the dungeon… :P). Also incidentally this exchange took place during that awkward time when Dean was giving Cas the silent treatment that we were comparing to his similar cold-shouldering in 12.10.

**Sam:** Dude, go easy on Cas, okay. He’s one of the good guys.  
 **Dean:**  Dude, if anybody else – I mean anybody – pulled that kind of crap, I would stab them in their neck on principle. Why should I give him a free pass? **Sam:** Because it’s Cas.

I mean, Dean had already picked Cas up off the road and brought him back to the bunker  _for the very first time_. I mean, Cas had been sorta off the reservation since they’d found the bunker after 8.12, but it took  _ten whole episodes_  to get Cas to come back with them. And he didn’t stab Cas in the neck. Sure he wasn’t speaking to him, but Dean was still hurt by how Cas had left things after 8.17.

And by the next episode, Dean’s spending the entire day with Cas, having forgiven him completely. So.

  

 

[spn 8.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.22) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	147. Chapter 147

[Oct 12, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166333832705/see-we-know-how-much-dean-loves-mary-but-he-was)

67 notes

**Anonymous asked: See, we know how much Dean loves Mary but he was able to say it. They're not diminishing his love for his mom or his upset about even Crowley and Kelly's deaths. So I think it just goes to show, if we know how much he's devastated by Mary's loss, how bad is it in regards to Cas if he can't even say it?**

(Cont) And not just how bad it must be, but why? I think that’s a good “sit up and take notice” moment for the audience.  
  


Yep. I mean, he accepts that there’s nothing he can do (currently) for Mary. He accepts that he saw Crowley sacrifice himself. BUT HE HAS NO WORDS FOR WHAT HAPPENED TO CAS. NONE.

And the show seemingly wants us to have this information in explicit and unequivocal terms.

There is no way to explain this in any other way.

And it’s literally the cause of Dean’s current emotional state.

There is no valid alternate interpretation here.

  

 

[spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	148. Chapter 148

[Oct 12, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166335066705/ive-heard-some-argument-that-dean-reacts-stronger)

95 notes

**Anonymous asked: I've heard some argument that Dean reacts stronger to Cas (in this situation but also in general) simply because Dean is the emotional POV focus of the show and Dean is just closer to Cas. And i'm like. Ok but Sam and Dean are both the leads regardless of who the POV is from, and they're both still dudes. We know how male relationships typically play out in media, and the show has given us two different male perspectives in relation to Cas. They are not portrayed as the same, at all.**

Yeah. I mean, I was talking to Lizbob this morning about this, and we were wondering when we could finally stop pointing out that Sam and Dean react in distinctly different ways to Cas stuff, because at this point it’s about as useful as constantly having to remind people that the sky is blue and water is wet.

I mean, there’s always some deliberately obtuse smartass who’ll argue that the sky isn’t really blue, and what about at night when it’s black because space or whatever, or that if it’s cold enough ice doesn’t feel wet… but as I said those are deliberately obtuse smartasses who think they’re being clever and cute, while the rest of us are sighing and rolling our eyes at just how far people will go to avoid admitting the obvious, undeniable truth.

I’m tired of running after these people, taking them by then hand, and walking them through the blatantly obvious.

They’re not portrayed the same, because they have different fundamental relationships with Cas.

I mean, when Jess died, Sam was devastated, and Dean was sad on his behalf, but NO ONE believed that Dean was an asshole for not being as devastated as Sam was by her death, you know?

Same when Eileen died. Sam wanted to punch things, Dean was gently supportive. Dean wasn’t a dick for not reacting as strongly as Sam did. Because they had different relationships with Eileen, and NO ONE argued that fact.

If anyone feels the need to debate this issue with regard to Cas, and why Dean and Sam should RIGHTLY have different reactions to him, his death, and anything to do with Cas at all… I ask them to consider this, and seriously ask themselves why they feel obligated to explain away the most obvious reason for this.

  

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	149. Chapter 149

[Oct 13, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166374378975/you-know-what-that-angels-oh-sweetie-castiel-is)

79 notes

**Anonymous asked: You know what that angel's "Oh sweetie. Castiel is all the way dead" line reminded me of? Naomi's "I know. You're hoping Castiel will return to you." Both times, the other angel was able to pick up on exactly what Dean was thinking without him having to say a word.**

Hi! And oh gosh, yeah. I mean, we already knew Naomi had far more context on what both Dean and Cas felt about one another, you know? This happened AFTER she’d “rehabilitated” Cas by forcing him to kill thousands of copies of Dean. She didn’t force Cas to kill random people. Or even other people Cas knew and cared for. Just Dean. Over and over again, until he could do it without even hesitating.

And Naomi also knew that when push came to shove, Cas STILL couldn’t kill the “real Dean.” And that fact was what broke her control over Cas. That Dean was the reason Cas broke free of her. We were led to assume that Naomi could “see” and “hear” everything that Cas could in the real world… like when he asked Naomi if he had to kill Meg without having to explain the circumstances to her. Like Naomi knew what was going on in Cas’s mind. So she knew what Dean said to Cas to break the connection, about needing him, about him being family to him. So she weaponized that information against Dean.

Now with Miriam, she didn’t even need the “subtext” here to know EXACTLY what to say to hurt Dean the most there.

Hashtag Everyone Knows.

  

 

[spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [spn 8.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.19) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	150. Chapter 150

[Oct 13, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166374949350/12-i-hope-this-makes-some-semblance-of-sense)

128 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 (I hope this makes some semblance of sense lol:P) The cutaway/flashback scenes from this ep kinda make me think of how subtext works. What was obvious: Dean hurt himsels (bloddy knuckles). What was technically subtextual: we assume he hit something based on the placement and severity of the injuries. We assume from that and his demeanor that he must've been upset. Yet no one ever said "you're delusional, Dean didn't punch anything, we never saw that. And he doesn't seem upset to me."**

2/2 But then they go and confirm what happened; practically speaking it was to show us that Dean sneaked off to pray, but if they hadn’t i think it’s safe to say that they would’ve assumed we could follow the subtext and infer that Dean probably punched something based on largely subtextual cues. This is an example of how we use subtext and context clues every. Day. Destiel should theoretically be no different. There’s a lot they don’t show us. Because maybe the think we can apply common sense.  
  


And then when Sam asked him about maybe praying to God to see if he could do anything about Cas, and Dean was indignant, like, “Do you think I didn’t try that?” like, what Sam, do you think I’m an idiot? THAT WAS LIKE MY FIRST MOVE AND LOOK HOW WELL IT PAID OFF… 

But yeah, we were meant to be thinking about Dean’s injured hand. We were meant to mentally file it away, and think about it, and wonder HOW it was injured and why…

We were TOLD he was planning to call Jody to give her the heads up about Jack, but why would THAT phone call have potentially upset him enough to punch something that hard? We were meant to believe that we’d missed something significant that Dean was SPECIFICALLY NOT TALKING ABOUT, because he was an emotional wreck.

So what’s another thing in a practically adjacent scene that Dean SPECIFICALLY COULD NOT BRING HIMSELF TO VERBALIZE?! That Cas was dead.

Let the subtext math commence! Dean can’t verbalize Cas’s death. Dean severely injures his hand but shows no other evidence of having engaged in fisticuffs with an opponent who could hit back. Dean doesn’t even acknowledge the injury to Sam, but Miriam the French Fry Angel identifies it as “punched a wall.”

Subtext math tells us to expect that something emotionally significant that Dean refuses to talk about yet led him to punch a wall.

The show took us by the bloody-knuckled hand and walked us through it. That’s how subtext works.

  

 

[spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [revenge of the subtext](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/revenge-of-the-subtext) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	151. Chapter 151

[Oct 14, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166415218645/it-sounds-like-were-gonna-get-a-whole-lot-of)

89 notes

**Anonymous asked: It sounds like we're gonna get a whole lot of grieving Dean (yes!). But when Cas comes back, Jensen called the reunion "understated." Do you think we're gonna get an equally emotional coming together eventually? I don't want them to brush over Cas coming back too quickly :/**

Hi there! I have a similar anon, so I’m tacking it on here:

> I just don’t know how they’re gonna do a platonic reunition now after everything we’ve seen Dean say/think/do. Not just because I love Destiel but because narrativly this is what they were IMPLYING

I’ve reblogged a few posts (and some asks that other folks have replied to) on the subject, but I think context is going to matter here. We know this reunion isn’t going to happen until EPISODE SIX. We know that a lot of the episodes in between deal with grieving, and when we see Cas again at the end of episode 3, and throughout much of episode 4, he’s going to be going through his own self-analysis sort of experience before he’s resurrected. So there is going to be Stuff Happening that will color what their reunion will look like.

There’s also the matter of the fact that they did burn Cas’s body. And yet, here he is. Like… how?! We just don’t know yet. And presumably neither will Dean when he sees Cas again.

There’s been some theories that there will be suspicion of Cas’s return, just like there was suspicion of his return from Purgatory in s8… but to the nth degree here because getting fished bodily out of Purgatory is a lil bit different from having an entire body fabricated for you and coming back from “all the way dead.”

So while Dean may be THRILLED to have Cas back, and a Cas who is indistinguishable from His Cas, there’s got to be that underlying fear that there’s got to be a catch, you know?

We’ve also been told that Cas will remember everything  _up to the point he died_. Which means whatever he learns and experiences in the ~mystery location~ he’s going to be in while “all the way dead” might not be immediately accessible to him. His motives for coming back to life, his self-analysis he undergoes there… it may begin “leaking out” the way Sam’s flashbacks to the cage and his soulless time did in s6, or the way Dean’s memories and flashes of Amara did in s11. Cas may not fully realize HIMSELF what conclusions he came to while “all the way dead” until near the end of the season, you know? That’s how these things tend to go on the show.

Plus, being reset to where he was in 12.23? Means he’s gonna still be in the mindset of Must Care For Jack. And if that’s not creepy as heck… because by then? Hopefully Jack will be learning How To Human from the Winchesters (and hopefully ESPECIALLY from Sam), and he may not feel he needs that sort of guardianship anymore, the sort that a smol babby would’ve needed anyway. It’s gonna be a shock to Cas that Jack is already man-sized. I hope he gets to express his bitterness over how much he spent on diapers… :P

Back to the point…

“Understated” in this context means “displaying less than what is actually felt.” People on a public street witnessed the filming of this scene, which means it’s going to take place in a public location. There will be strangers potentially watching, and I can’t really see Dean screeching in glee and clinging to Cas like a sad koala on a public street, you know? Time and place…

In this case, I think this is going to be a VERY emotional scene, even if the physical interaction we see seems “understated.” It will be obvious that what we’re seeing is far less than what they’re actually feeling, you know? And I love that. It’s gonna kill us all. :P

 

 

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	152. Chapter 152

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the Song of Solomon...

[Oct 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166593812410/i-just-cant-get-over-it-i-mean-the-bible-is-a)

94 notes

**Anonymous asked: I just can't get over it. I mean, the Bible is a diverse book. There are MANY books/verses that apply to their general life situation right now. But there is only *one* that deals explicitly with romantic and sexual love. And they had Jack open right to it. And it definitely wasn't a "just show Jack randomly flipping through it* type situation, because they focused on the title of the book he opened to. And again, it was SO specific. Song of Solomon of all things:P**

Yep. It could’ve been Genesis. That would be the logical place to start reading the bible, especially after Jack just figured out that God is technically his grandfather… They could’ve had him open to practically any other book, but nope.

DEAN threw him the book, exiled him to the sofa, and ordered him to read. Then we get the shot of the page Jack opened to.

Kinda like they were trying to show Dean giving Jack A Clue. This is what Dean believes Jack took from him, after all. He blames Cas’s death on Jack. So…

  

 

[spn 13.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.02) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [silent storytelling](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/silent-storytelling) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [and hey lookie it graduated to actual book symbolism](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-hey-lookie-it-graduated-to-actual-book-symbolism) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[Oct 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166609276555/im-sorry-but-i-havent-stopped-screaming-since)

27 notes

**Anonymous asked: i'm sorry but i haven't stopped screaming since they threw song of solomon in our faces like. this is a deadass giveaway isn't it. there's no way you can just handwave a sign like that, this is happening for real**

As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.

He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.

Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.

His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.

I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

  

 

[spn 13.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.02) [song of solomon](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/song-of-solomon) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [yes imma just reply with quotes from the book](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yes-imma-just-reply-with-quotes-from-the-book) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

[Oct 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166614690630/song-of-solomon-is-a-beautiful-book-with-deeply)

172 notes

**Anonymous asked: Song of Solomon is a beautiful book with deeply emotional and poetic verses. That's what it's known for. I've seen meta about how the character Solomon and his story pertains to Jack and their situation in other ways and I agree--there are often multiple meanings and ways to apply things on SPN. BUT I still maintain that they know what the book is known for and what it's mainly about and did indeed mean for our minds to go there. They're being very transparent so far this season??**

I opened to my beloved; but my beloved had withdrawn himself, and was gone: my soul failed when he spake: I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. 

  

 

[spn 13.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.02) [song of solomon](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/song-of-solomon) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [yep still replying to song of solomon asks with quotes :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yep-still-replying-to-song-of-solomon-asks-with-quotes-%3AP) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

[Sep 6, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/177805924790/sometimes-i-lay-awake-at-night-and-think-about-how)

18 notes

**Anonymous asked: Sometimes I lay awake at night and think about how they chose to show us Song of Solomon at at time Dean was missing Cas. I mean, there's 66 books of the bible and any of them could've fit with what they were going through at the time, but sure pick the one that's most known for its romantic and sexual prose/verses.**

Heeee! I mean, I think it served a bunch of purposes as a reference, and not just the obvious one here–

Yes, obviously it was about Dean and his mourning. That’s actually the  _surface layer text_  here. I mean… it’s a love poem. Go read it. It’s very short:

[https://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/Bible/Song_of_Solomon.html](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.fourmilab.ch%2Fetexts%2Fwww%2FBible%2FSong_of_Solomon.html&t=MWFhMTFhYjY4YzkwYmVjMzc1MDI4NGEzNTVlZDk2MzJhYzdiZGU5MCxvVzFXbkdRQg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F177805924790%2Fsometimes-i-lay-awake-at-night-and-think-about-how&m=1)

I mean, Dean throws the bible to Jack, who VERY MUCH wants to understand why Dean seems to hate him, to the point where Jack is mirroring all of Dean’s movements and actions and mannerisms (the burger eating scene, anyone?), while wearing a Cas-coded tan jacket. And he opens it right to this love poem, while Dean’s actively suffering the greatest loss of his life. This is the surface level text. Or at the deepest, the emotional undercurrent that pulled the entire first third of s13 together.

But that’s certainly not the only reference:

Solomon is connected to Asmodeus. Some stories have Asmodeus flinging Solomon from his kingdom and essentially assuming his identity for a time. And in the episode where Asmodeus was introduced, sitting on the Throne of Hell in Lucifer’s absence… and then later learning that Asmo’s power had literally been stolen from Gabriel, and Gabriel eventually reclaimed his power and took out his wrath on Asmo… I mean, there was A LOT set up with that one tiny reference there.

(I mean, just read down the list of places and ways that Asmodeus has been intertwined with Solomon on the ol’ wikipedia here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asmodeus](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FAsmodeus&t=YWIyZGI5Yzc1YmE1N2Q0NDU4OWU5MGI5ODlmY2NiODc0NTJjY2U2NyxvVzFXbkdRQg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F177805924790%2Fsometimes-i-lay-awake-at-night-and-think-about-how&m=1))

  

 

[spn 13.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.02) [asmodeus](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/asmodeus) [song of solomon](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/song-of-solomon) [I've probably got loads more detailed posts in all of those tags :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/I%27ve-probably-got-loads-more-detailed-posts-in-all-of-those-tags-%3AP) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 


	153. Chapter 153

[Oct 20, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166614905990/yknow-we-have-the-popular-sam-knows-tag-and)

146 notes

**Anonymous asked: Y'know, we have the popular "Sam knows" tag, and meta on the subject. But this ep has me asking "but does he??" While there's no doubt Sam understands that Dean has a profound bond and different relationship with Cas, I'm questioning exactly to what extent. Does he grasp the full depth of it? And can he truly understand Dean's headspace right now if not? Because he's trying to pull Dean out of this with a standard speech and while he meant it, its too generic for what Dean's going through.**

Yeah, it’s popular in fic for Sam to have the whole “FINALLY!” moment after they get together, and in canon he does seem to get that Dean’s relationship with Cas is a lot different than his own relationship with Cas… but yeah, Sam isn’t seeing the whole picture here…

Even after the “he’s not an it, he’s Cas” in 11.18, and even after all of s12, Sam still doesn’t get it.

I am REALLY hoping he at least begins to understand just how much he underestimated how Cas’s death would affect Dean before Cas comes back. Then again, his moment of revelation could come once he sees the blatant turnaround in Dean’s mood and demeanor the moment Cas comes back… It’ll be interesting to see how they show all of this.

 

 

[spn 13.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.02) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	154. Chapter 154

#  [More sheep and goats](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166719612875/more-sheep-and-goats)

[Oct 23, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166719612875/more-sheep-and-goats)

104 notes

I’ve been threatening to write long meta on 13.02, but there’s so much visual symbolism to parse out and it is so early in the season, so while there’s a barrage of imagery to sift through, it’s still a bit early to know what sort of weight to attribute to them, but a few of these things are also carryovers from s12. As such, Instead of writing that long meta, I’m gonna use this post as a pinboard of sorts and make some notes for future consideration.

(all screencaps from [HotN](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fthumbnails.php%3Falbum%3D288&t=M2MwOGUwZDk3ZGVkMzAwNmVlMDRhY2U0MTRjNzA3YzAwYTIxOWMzZixURDFpVFZKaQ%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F166719612875%2Fmore-sheep-and-goats&m=1))

We’ve already seen some hints (from bts and promo photos) that there’s a sort of cowboy/wild west theme running through at least a few of early season episodes, and that’s already become apparent between Dean’s Chuck Wagon Donuts and coffee, and the sign for the hotel:

Black Hat, with a side of glowing spur (which also resembles [all the starburst lights](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-love-those-dumb-starburst-lamps) Jerry Wanek is so [enamored with](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Aidiotically-waves-at-internet-photo-of-a-couple-of-lamps%2A-%2Aimagines-jerry-knows-and-understands%2A)). Even without knowing there’s an attached bar called the Black Spur yet, we’re already being subtly reminded of 10.01 and Dean’s “howling at the moon” with Crowley at another bar/motel called the Black Spur here. From 10.01, Black Spur and attendant blonde waitress/bartender that Dean had a relationship with (in a room with ugly yellow diamond-patterned lights in our prison imagery recap, while spending most of his time getting blazingly drunk and singing terrible karaoke and avoiding any sort of responsibility at all, since he was a demon and all that… but point being that Dean was with Anne Marie because she was  _there_ , and the alcohol was  _there_ , so he slept with her and drank and did whatever he wanted because he could):

And then the current Black Spur Bar, with attendant blonde waitress/bartender (who unbeknownst to Dean had been murdered and replaced by a yellow-eyed demon, but who Dean was as honest as he could be with, because he didn’t have any reason to lie. He also turned down her offer for another drink. Just because the alcohol was  _there_  and the waitress was  _there_ , didn’t mean he would just  _take_  them like he had in the past… a lot of this scene was a complete subversion of his Summer of Love…)

We even have a similar shot of her in profile as they have similar conversations from opposite ends of the line… One about abusive relationships, and the other about failing to live up to the expectations of an absent/abusive father.

Which brings me to the sign behind waitress!Asmodeus here:

While Dean had come to the bar to get a little reprieve from the horror of the last three days, he had ONE (1) drink, and not diving head first into a bottle, while looking through something on his phone in a rather contemplative and quiet fashion. It made me wonder if the place had reminded him of Crowley (and possibly their flickr albums), but also of Cas (who he’s been shown repeatedly to be in hardcore grieving mode over, and maybe scrolling through all the texting and emoticons Cas exchanged with him over the last few years). Whatever he’d been doing, it was clear he was looking for a little quiet space to collect his thoughts.

He’s interrupted by Asmodeus, who was fishing for information by doing what any bartender in an otherwise empty bar would do– strike up a conversation with the only patron in the bar. I’ve read some pretty far-fetched theories that Dean should’ve been on his guard and suspicious of the woman, and that he was dumb for being so open and honest with her, and that it’s a definite sign that Dean is In A Bad Place™ and dangerously off the rails… and no? Just because he had a “bad feeling” about stopping at the motel/bar to begin with? (which they only apparently did because, as Sam said, Dean had been hallucinating sheep on the road… which actually reminded me of Cas’s dilemma over falling asleep in 9.03 when it was suggested that he count sheep, resulting in his perplexed wondering about  _what_  sheep…)

I’ve seen it suggested that the fact he didn’t immediately notice the waitress was actually Asmodeus was a sign that his “spidey senses” had failed, as a direct result of his current nihilistic mood. Even though it isn’t even until the following morning that they have any reason to suspect demonic involvement at all. They’d warded their rooms against  _angels_ , so Dean didn’t fear  _angels_  would be able to get to them for the time being. As far as Dean knows, he’s covered his bases.

Proof that his spidey senses (and self-preservation instinct) are still in full effect is his fight with the demon in his room the next morning. Even with his back turned, he  _knows_ there’s something behind him and he reacts appropriately. While talking with what he had no reason to believe was anything other than a human woman just trying to make polite conversation, he simply tried to do the same in return.

**Asmodeus** (walking around collecting empty beer bottles): Get you another?  
 **Dean** (sitting at the bar with an undrunk shot of whiskey at his elbow, focused on his phone): Yeah, sure.  
 **Asmodeus** : What the hell, you’re not driving, right? J.. I seen ya at the hotel. Passing through with, what? Your buddies?  
 **Dean** (from a different angle, where the yellow and blue glowing Kingdom beer sign is now literally perched on his shoulder): Ah, that’s my brother, and… some messed up kid.  
 **Asmodeus** : Aw, kid’s messed up?  
 **Dean** : Yeah, issues with his dad.  
 **Asmodeus** : The older fella?  
 **Dean** : No, that’s uh, Donatello… uh, he’s a… guy we work with.  
 **Asmodeus** : I hated my old man. I ran away myself. See, my mom would never stick up for me, but… (sighs) you know kids. No matter what, they still want the old man’s approval. Well, that’s how it was for me…   
 **Dean** : Yeah, That’s… that’s how it was with me, too.  
 **Asmodeus** : I’m talking your ear off. I’ll– I’ll grab you that drink.  
 **Dean** : You know what? I’m good. Uh, I’m gonna take a walk. (he finally drinks his original drink and leaves)

NOTHING HE SAID IN THIS CONVERSATION WAS DANGEROUS OR LED TO ASMODEUS TAKING JACK. Nothing he said here was particularly secret info, and he obscured the actual truth of who the people he was with really were. He didn’t go announcing the kid’s father was Lucifer or that Donatello was a soulless former prophet of Chuck… I mean, this woman was  _trying to be nice to Dean_ , he was just trying to be left alone for a few minutes and still engaged in polite conversation that she essentially pushed on him, and excused himself after a reasonably polite amount of time. Notice through the entire conversation he continues looking down at his phone, signalling that he’s not really interested in conversation, yet the woman persists. If she’s noticing things happening at the motel enough to have noticed Dean’s associates, then he literally does need to give her some sort of reasonable story lest she get suspicious of him… That’s literally part of how Sam and Dean have always tried to blend into the background and not get noticed.

He was actually laying down what seemed like a reasonable cover story along the lines of reasonable cover stories they’ve always used in the past when locals got a bit overly-friendly or nosy about their business.

I did, however, find it interesting that after the establishing shot of the bar, the next shot we get is a wide shot in which the Fast Jack Ale sign is visible again, but is almost immediately obscured by this post beside Dean:

It’s on screen so quickly that there isn’t even a cap of it on HotN., but you can see it glowing a little bit from behind that post… I find it an interesting juxtaposition for an earlier shot, where Dean, Sam, and Jack first enter the hotel room. I’ve also seen a gif of this going around saying that Jack was the only one “in the light” in this shot:

Which is true in one sense, because you can barely see Sam in the shadows at the right, while Dean’s lit with red prison bar imagery… but at least he’s standing NEXT to a lamp. The source of light making Jack so bright isn’t visible to us, but the brightest light source in the room (that we can see, illuminating the bright blue wall over Jack’s shoulder in that first cap), Jack walks right to the center of the room and physically  _blots that light out with his body_.

Considering the Fast Jack Ale light gets the same treatment by a big wooden post Dean’s leaning against in the bar scene, I find it interesting enough to point out here.

Okay, back to the shot of Dean in the bar, huddled around his phone… while the Fast Jack sign’s obscured behind him and all we see is the purple-to-pink glow above him (hello bi flag lighting). Thing is, as soon as Dean’s attention is drawn away from his phone, he’s reframed not against the bisexual colors, but with something protective hovering above his shoulder– the Kingdom Beer sign most commonly associated with Cas.

Who said Cas wasn’t there to be the angel on Dean’s shoulder? Because that’s exactly what this shot’s implying throughout his entire conversation with Waitressmodeus. Short aside here to reiterate the comment I made last week about Jack walking around in the altogether looking for his “Father.” People thought I was joking when I suggested he hadn’t been talking to the pirate,  _but to the parrot on the pirate’s shoulder_. I really wasn’t joking. For now, I’m taking this shot ^^ as proof that Jack was talking to the parrot.

It’s just like the shorts thing… Just because Cas said once, years ago, that he’s not there to perch on anyone’s shoulder… it’s kinda been his whole shtick for the last 10 years so…

Back to the point of this post… (sorry, as per usual, there will probably be more tangents I’ll run down… it’s because I have no other choice…)

Aside from the Kingdom, the obscured Fast Jack, and the 3 Sheeps, the only other glowing signs in this place are these:

The red and yellow Tom’s Tequila sign featured prominently in 11.21 (with very long meta attached [here ](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/144341089110/f-ckyeahfutbol-f-ckyeahfutbol-i-decided-to)and [here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/144312804630/wait-what-oh-my-god-i-didnt-notice-the) and [here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/144311203250/postmodernmulticoloredcloak-miss-devonaire)), but again it’s the red and yellow warning colors in this shot to counteract the blue and yellow heaven-coded Schultz sign (i.e. DEAAAAATH by duty). Note there’s no El Sol going on here, because Dean has no idea that the waitress isn’t anyone other than she appears to be. But the Tequila sign is sort of pointing to a bait-and-switch…

There’s also one of those infamous “caged halo” lights we so often associate with Cas on the ceiling behind Dean in this shot, but notice it’s switched off right now…

Also in the very near foreground of this shot, it’s hard to make out but it looks like two glowing beer taps, the handles of which are pink and blue. Just saying…

And again detouring back around to the original reason I starting putting all these images together… 

The [3 Sheeps](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/3%20sheeps) meta from 12.16 and 12.18. 

We wrote a lot about different bible verses having to do with sheep and goats, including the passages from Luke where Jesus tells the parable of the prodigal son, which is the  _third_  version of the sheep/goats parable that he relates.

Sheep are mentioned several times in the Song of Solomon, as well. Throughout the bible people have been compared to sheep, flocks, etc. with the Lord as our shepherd. There’s no shortage of possible metaphorical comparisons to sheep imagery in the bible. But since we were specifically shown the Song of Solomon in this episode, I think that’s likely the source of comparison relevant to this particular episode.

But we also know that Jack himself is serving as a mirror for all three members of TFW. The Rule Of Three is applying in all sorts of different contexts through this one sign. :)

So there you go. I probably should’ve titled this Mittens Rambles On Pointlessly While Gesturing Wildly At Seemingly Random Stuff But I Swear All Of It ///Means Something///. None of this currently Means Anything yet, though. I’m just beginning to pin random stuff to my cork board. I haven’t even got out the red twine yet. I just wanted all of this potentially future relevant stuff in one place for ease of future pointing and screaming and red twine connect-the-dots. :P

 

 

[spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [spn 13.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.02) [i love those dumb starburst lamps](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-love-those-dumb-starburst-lamps) [*idiotically waves at internet photo of a couple of lamps* *imagines jerry knows and understands*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Aidiotically-waves-at-internet-photo-of-a-couple-of-lamps%2A-%2Aimagines-jerry-knows-and-understands%2A) [this is a jerry wanek appreciation blog](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-a-jerry-wanek-appreciation-blog) [supernatural beer signs](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-beer-signs) [3 sheeps](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/3-sheeps) [fast jack's ale](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/fast-jack%27s-ale) [where's that gif of the Kingdom logo fade in to cas's face from that episode...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/where%27s-that-gif-of-the-Kingdom-logo-fade-in-to-cas%27s-face-from-that-episode...) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [silent storytelling](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/silent-storytelling) [revenge of the subtext](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/revenge-of-the-subtext) [worst ship on the show](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/worst-ship-on-the-show) [spn 10.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.01) [spn 12.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.16) [spn 12.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.18) [schultz the beer of death and debt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/schultz-the-beer-of-death-and-debt)[tom's tequila](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/tom%27s-tequila) [dean winchester is bilingual](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-winchester-is-bilingual)

 

 

 

 

May 13, 2016

12 notes

**Anonymous asked: wait what oh. my. god. i didnt notice the straw.... how bADLY CAN ONE FUCK UP A MARTINI.... A STRAW!!!???....**

To be fair, it wasn’t a martini, it was a margarita. But even margaritas are usually served without a straw. They’re also traditionally served in glasses that look like this:

or in a pinch, in a martini glass. Or even in a lowball tumbler glass like this:

Either frozen or on the rocks, not straight up. That little stirring straw isn’t to drink through, it’s like a coffee stirrer to keep the drink mixed as it melts. That drink was just a mockery of a margarita from top to bottom. 

[spn 11.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.21) [supernatural beer signs](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-beer-signs) [the unholy margarita pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-unholy-margarita-pffft) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 

OLD linked 3 Sheeps Meta from 12.16 and 12.18 will be included in my next work posted, including 3 Sheeps, the Fisher King, and You Learned It From The Goats meta...

 

 


	155. Chapter 155

[Oct 24, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166762012165/dean-is-at-the-lowest-ive-ever-seen-him-but-i)

25 notes

**Anonymous asked: dean is at the lowest i've ever seen him but i don't think he's worse than s7. i think that is bc in s7 he was losing sam too, and on top of feeling crippling guilt, confusion and anger with cas he didn't quite know why he was feeling so broken over his death. while now he knows his feelings for cas and acts exactly like a grieving widow. he may not be exactky suicidal and continue living on, but it's not something he can recover from.**

Oh no… yeah. S7 started by taking Cas from him, and Sam was already on shaky ground after the agony that was s6… but really s7 just started taking and didn’t stop… By 7.17 Dean had pretty much nothing left…

Losing not just Cas, but Mary and Crowley too, all in a five minute span, then having his last-ditch play of praying to Chuck fail to get a response. I don’t know if it’s even comparable to s7 which took things from him gradually and just wore him down over time, but this is a single knockout blow like dealing all his s7 losses to him at once.

Not to mention as Cas said in 7.17 after he remembered everything, “We didn’t part friends, Dean.” He regretted that, and had promised to redeem himself to Dean before the Leviathan took over and walked him into the lake, but by then it was too late. As far as Cas knew, Dean was still in that headspace about their relationship, that he was still Not Okay and Cas’s apology and intent to make it up to Dean hadn’t been enough for Dean to forgive him… but it had been, and that became the basis for rebuilding their friendship.

Thing is, as bad as all that was when he lost Cas in 7.01… it’s so much worse now. He’d been kinda rocky with Cas throughout most of s6, while still holding out hope and trusting in Cas, before that trust was shattered in 6.20. They’ve lived through several different rounds of these ups and downs since then, but at the end of s12, it was clear that their relationship had evolved considerably since s6, you know?

THIS DOES NOT COMPARE.

But at least we know Cas IS coming back, even if Dean doesn’t right now. And at least WE know it’s not gonna be months and months of Dean living without Cas this time. SOON. IT’LL BE SOON! So at least we won’t see Dean worn down to the depths that s7 just pulverized him to. He took one INTENSE CRITICAL HIT with the events of May 18, but remember in canon, it’s only like May 22… He’s going to get Cas back before he gets anywhere near the end of his line.

 

[spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	156. Chapter 156

[Oct 25, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166784451985/my-boyfriend-admitted-yesterday-after-finally)

72 notes

**[carasauruswrex](http://carasauruswrex.tumblr.com/) asked: My boyfriend admitted yesterday after finally watching 13.1 that Dean and Cas DO love each other. He has no doubt in his mind that if Cas were female, Destiel would have happened. BUT he sees Dean as straight and doesn't believe anything could happen with Cas in Jimmy's body. I told him that this is heteronormative bi erasure and that as a bisexual, I find it offensive that he makes that assumption. What if these sorts of casual viewer opinions keep Destiel from ever happening? I'm losing hope.**

Hi there! And congrats to your boyfriend for seeing the love there. :D

First off, no offense to straight dudes, but the straight dude I’ve been married to for 20 years has absolutely no sense of bifi. Or gaydar. I mean, if he sees two dudes kissing at Pride he’d pick up on it (and there are a few famous people who came out that he wasn’t surprised at all about– George Michael, Rob Halford, he was shocked that anyone was shocked…), but when it comes to closeted bisexuals who  _deliberately do not want to be detected_ , especially the way Dean performs dudebro heterosexuality as well as Dean does especially in early seasons, he just has no clue.

*insert that gif of Sam telling Dean he’s overcompensating*

The things about Dean that have been screamingly obvious because I relate to them from personal experience just don’t register to a straight dude who has never once questioned his sexuality (like Sam, for instance). To a person who has experienced it first-hand, a lot of Dean’s behavior reads as signal flares as bright as day. If it were only used for the occasional joke, or rare random things that didn’t fit into a much larger pattern, or if it were just enough to make me sit up and notice once or twice a season, I’d assume it was just a coincidence. But… it’s not a rare random occurrence. It’s something we see in nearly every episode, more and more blatantly as the seasons progress.

I tell everyone to read this:

<http://destielhiseyesopened.tumblr.com/post/102023741956/slash-and-subtext-series>

It’s a lot to read, yes, but it’s incredibly thorough and the sort of thing your neck will be sore from nodding along in agreement the entire time. :P

As for whether or not the show will go there, which NONE of us can say for sure, the one thing I can say for sure is that it will not be casual viewer opinions that will influence Dabb’s storytelling. He’s said it multiple times, that he’s going to tell this story his way, whatever that might mean in the end. Dude’s not telling. I mean, look at him:

So while it’s great to have hope, because we DESERVE representation in blatant and clear terms, there is no guarantee that we will actually GET it. I mean, that is a very real possibility. It’s why I personally don’t watch the show with any expectation for ANYTHING, you know? Then every new hint that they are taking this somewhere is a pleasant surprise. For me, watching from the standpoint that I EXPECT a certain outcome is just not an enjoyable way to live. It’s just too much to stress about.

And as I’ve said over and over again, just like Dabb, I personally couldn’t give a flying fuck with the mysterious “general audience” sees when they watch the show. I watch because of what *I* see in the show, because I like analyzing the story, writing meta (with the friendly reminder that “meta” has exactly zero to do with predicting the future of the story… that’s speculation, and aside from being able to read obvious twists and turns in near-future plot points, or understanding general character development arcs and where they could potentially be headed in vague general ways, I DO NOT ENJOY SPECULATION, especially when it involves the sort of detail that a lot of more casual fans seem to expect of meta writers. I AM TIRED OF FOLKS HAVING THE IMPRESSION THAT SPECULATION AND POSITIVITY FOR THE FUTURE OF THE SERIES AND CHARACTERS IS “”””META”””” BECAUSE IT ABSOLUTELY IS NOT.

Sorry for yelling, I needed to put that out there. Comments of “I love your meta!” when referring to headcanons and speculation about endgame destiel is just… missing the entire point. The meta is the long academic character analysis, the comparisons with the current arc to past canon, the examination of episodes THAT ARE ALREADY PART OF CANON. Looking to the future to make guesses about what COULD happen in the future is SPECULATION. NOT META.

I’m so tired of people who do not understand that giving meta writers hate and dismissing EVERYTHING we’ve written because a “prediction” didn’t come true on the show exactly as someone wrote it… A guess of what will happen in the future that doesn’t quite pan out doesn’t invalidate all the ACTUAL meta we’ve all written over the years. Because just like pr is not showrunning, speculation isn’t meta.

*even when the speculation is attached to the bottom of a really long meta post. The speculation bit isn’t the tl;dr of the post. it’s the interesting and fun little bonus bit after you’ve consumed the factual part of the analysis. It’s the little blop of whipped cream on top of the pie that is the actual important content. It’s mostly decorative and just a bit of fun.*

Thanks, this has been a meta writer PSA.)

The point of all that is that none of us have a crystal ball, none of us have some secret insider information into Andrew Dabb’s brain. Despite the fact that we’ve been watching his storytelling over the last 8+ years (yes, he’s been writing for the show since s4, and has written more episodes of Supernatural than any other writer, so we have A LOT of history to look over, not to mention all of s12 and the back ~third~ at least of s11 after he silently took over the showrunning from Carver to look at when trying to understand his pet themes and how he writes), the best we can do is make educated guesses.

I’m not basing my hope for canon on some ability to read the future, I’m basing it on MY ability to look at the entirety of extant canon and be objectively logical about where the story started, where the story is NOW, and as far as individual character development arcs based on having watched them all evolve over twelve plus seasons already…

Well, let’s just say that for *me,* I can see the characters have been on a logical emotional progression over the course of the entire series (that would be the “meta” part of things). As new canon unfolds, and characters continue to develop and interpersonal storylines continue to evolve… here’s a metaphor. The writers are walking the characters down a long hallway with loads of doorways open to potential future development arcs. As they walk past each doorway and don’t veer off course, it’s like they’re closing off logical possibilities to detour into alternate routes. They’re slamming and locking those doors up forever. The closer we get to the end of canon (in whatever nebulous future that the series will reach its end, and NONE of us know when that will be right now), the fewer doorways are left to walk past, and the less logical any detour from what looks (again, from reading the meta and looking back at the entirety of past canon) like the steady progression of development would be.

Does that make sense? I mean, they’re writing themselves into a corner (or into the end of the hallway where there’s only going to be one last exit door to walk through). But again, as long as there’s still hallway ahead of us, they could take an “easier” route or just decide to stop walking altogether and just sort of set up camp at their current point in character development. It wouldn’t really be sensible for the STORY as it stands right now for them to do either of these things, because if they start backtracking looking for a different door the entire narrative falls apart. Whatever they do, they must keep writing forward.

*stops and scrolls up and cries a lil bit at how much I wrote*

[Originally posted by you-wanna-kiss-the-girl](https://tmblr.co/ZpYwAl1ewA02O)

Point is, we just don’t know. I’m hopeful, I feel like we DESERVE to be seen and this love story absolutely DESERVES canon acknowledgement for what it is, and that every sign in past canon and every sign the writers are continuing to carry on down this hallway is pointing to it happening at some distant point in the future… but as of right now  _none of us have any idea what that eventual resolution will look like._  What even is canon?

I mean, your boyfriend said he sees that Dean and Cas love each other. Is that canon? What would “qualify” as being legitimately canon? I love @bluestar86′s [spec post about how easy it would be to make Dean’s bisexuality textually canon](http://bluestar86.tumblr.com/post/149950106678/how-dean-should-come-out-on-the-show), but I have no idea if we’d ever get an episode stating it so blatantly. We might, though. We did have Dean asking a gay married couple what it was like settling down with another hunter…

The point is, even trying to speculate on what will happen in the future– especially something so unknowable and distant as “endgame,” is honestly impossible. We have no idea what will happen in canon between now and then in specific terms. In the meantime, I’m perfectly content to point and flail at what  _is actually happening in canon right now_  and paying exactly zero attention to what “casual viewers” think they’re watching.

I know exactly what I’m watching, and I love it.

Will they ever make it undeniably obvious and clear in canon? I mean, it is undeniably obvious and clear to *me* but everyone has their own personal biases and wishes and checklists of things they feel must happen, and no matter if the series ends with Dean and Cas getting married there will still always be people who deny it was “enough” to make their relationship obvious, you know? I just… don’t have the energy to deal with that level of denialism. It just stresses me out to worry about what “endgame” might look like  _specifically_  when as far as we know, “endgame” isn’t even on the table yet.

So by all means, if you can, take that small step back and try and enjoy the continuing story, and don’t put too much stock in anyone’s opinion of what may or may not happen in the future. But most of all, don’t put much much stock in what random straight dudes in the general audience think. Because Andrew Dabb doesn’t. :P

Wow okay that turned into a treatise…

 

[spn meta meta](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-meta-meta) [revenge of the subtext](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/revenge-of-the-subtext) [the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [carasauruswrex](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/carasauruswrex) [this is an andrew dabb appreciation blog (except when it comes to car stuff)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-an-andrew-dabb-appreciation-blog-%28except-when-it-comes-to-car-stuff%29)


	157. Chapter 157

[Oct 27, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166853945760/i-really-took-in-deans-comment-that-he-thinks)

127 notes

**Anonymous asked: I really took in Dean’s comment that he thinks Sam’s motivation is actually using Jack for his powers. But do you think it’s not just about bringing back Mary from the AU but bringing Cas back to life? He did call Cas his family too. I would love for Sam to tell Dean I think Jack can return Cas to them because he means so much to both of them but acknowledge that for Dean, it’s more personal and he supports that relationship.**

I really… Don’t think Sam thought they could bring Cas back… he’s been framing ALL his motivation around the fact that Jack opened the portal that Mary was dragged through, so logically he should be able to open it again so they can pull her back through.

He’s been pushing THIS at Dean as something to give him hope, because they really (after Dean’s prayer to Chuck went unanswered) really don’t have hope for Cas. And Sam really doesn’t get it that to Dean, it’s just not enough.

I think they SPECIFICALLY had Sam acknowledge that Cas was family TO SHOW THE MAGNITUDE OF DIFFERENCE between what Sam means by “family” when referring to Cas, and what Dean means… Because yes, they both consider Cas family, but he is CLEARLY and IRREFUTABLY something much more than that to Dean.

Sam doesn’t get that yet, but hopefully this is the beginning of him coming to that understanding.

Because yes, part of what is motivating Sam with Jack right now is that very personal need to prove that he can be “saved” even though Jack hasn’t done anything he needs to be saved from yet, he just is who he is and is struggling to understand HIMSELF still. But Sam is rather desperate to “prove” that Jack is not inherently evil, and he does sympathize with him on that level. But he’s just not treating Jack like a ///person/// here… he’s treating him like a tool, honing him for battle by testing his powers. It was really freaking disturbing to me, watching Sam pull a BMoL on Jack with the video surveillance after he told Jack he wouldn’t watch… I mean… for a guy who claimed to understand what Jack was going through, he really treated him like a dick. Like, dude… has Sam been reading the Kendricks teacher’s manual or something? >.>

So yeah, I think Dean’s assessment there was pretty spot on. There’s being “nice” to someone because you genuinely care about them, and then there’s being “nice” to someone because you want something from them. Just like with Dean… there’s being “mean” to someone because you’re an asshole and want to hurt them, and then there’s being “mean” because you’re telling the truth as you see it and as much as it might be difficult to hear, better the painful truth than the comforting lie, especially when lives (and especially with a power as huge and unpredictable as Jack may prove to be– maybe the entire universe) are on the line.

And I think Sam’s just been essentially blindsided by the intensity of Dean’s feelings here. Because much as Sam is always trying to get Dean to open up to him, he 100% truly was not expecting this.

 

[spn 13.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.03) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [sam sympathizes and dean empathizes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-sympathizes-and-dean-empathizes) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	158. Chapter 158

[Nov 1, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167022278635/todays-journey-through-the-tnt-loop-included)

21 notes

Today’s journey through the TNT loop included 10.13-10.16. Who knew it would be 10.15 that poked at my brain hard enough to spit notes out?

Then again, I recall writing A LOT about Sam and Dean’s different approaches to solving this case, and specifically why Sam’s approach failed while Dean’s succeeded. And since that’s once again a current theme in s13, I figured it was relevant to mention again.

Also, with regard to Dean’s apparent lack of care about confessing the whole “monsters are real” speech to random citizens… it was also Sam’s approach to explaining the unavoidable truth to Kit’s wife in 10.15. But Sam’s  _exact_  approach, despite looking on the surface like the exact same thing Dean confesses to Sheriff Barker in 13.01, is coming from a very different perspective.

[Int. Kit and Jemma’s house. Sam and Jemma are still on the couch talking, and Kit is still tied in the kitchen.]  
 **JEMMA** : So, you’re a hunter.  
 **SAM** : Right.  
 **JEMMA** : And … I’m sorry. This is gonna take me a minute. It’s, uh …  
 **SAM** : It’s crazy, right? It sounds crazy? l know. But it’s the truth.  
 **JEMMA** : I don’t care if he’s what you say he is, okay? He’s my husband. (While Jemma is talking, the camera pans to Kit waking up in the kitchen.)  
 **SAM** : Jemma, he tried to kill you. Was that your husband when you looked into his eyes? Was that the Kit you know? Look … Dean is working on it. Dean and Cole will figure it out, okay? Let me check in with them.

Sam focuses on explaining who and what HE is while mostly ignoring the actual monster in the room. He tried to justify HIMSELF to Jemma.

In 13.01:

**DEAN** : My name is Dean Winchester. That big fella in there is my brother Sam. We kill monsters.  
 **SHERIFF BARKER** : Monsters?  
 **DEAN** : Mm.  
 **SHERIFF BARKER** : Like…  
 **DEAN** : Have you ever seen a horror movie?  
 **SHERIFF BARKER**  (after a pause): Mm-hmm.  
 **DEAN** : Like that.  
 **SHERIFF BARKER** (another long pause): So what are you? Some kind of superhero?  
 **DEAN** : I’m just a guy doing a job. (pause) So that kid you got in there, he’s, uh…  
SHERIFF BARKER: Not… human?  
 **DEAN** : Not exactly.  
 **SHERIFF BARKER** : So, um… what is he?  
 **DEAN** : So… Jack  is a nephilim. He’s half-human and half-angel. Angels are real, too.  
[The moment Dean says Jack’s name, we see Jack in the jail cell, lying down. His eyes open as if he can hear Dean talking about him]  
 **SHERIFF BARKER** : [ Exhales, chuckles ] Right.

Dean gives essentially his name and job description before breaking into the fastest possible rundown to get to the point: Magic Jack.

Considering 10.15 was another episode with Cole, a character that Sam and Dean both had prior interactions with, and who learned about hunting from those interactions… I find this interesting. From 10.01, 10.02, 10.07… compare Sam’s approach, Demon!Dean’s approach, and Dean’s approach.

Which also brings us to 10.16, which strangely enough gives us some insight into Dean’s grief. Back then, as he felt himself succumbing to the Mark again (or at least was beginning to realize it was inevitable since they hadn’t been able to find a cure), he was literally grieving the loss of a life he’d never be able to have.

**FATHER DELANEY** : As penance, you shall say five “Hail Mary’s” two “Our Father’s”, and reflect on your transgression.  
 **DEAN** : And then, that’s it? then I’m good to go?  
 **FATHER DELANEY** : One would hope some…inner exploration might occur. The prayers are just the beginning to some serious soul-searching.  
 **DEAN** : Hmm.  
[DEAN pauses for a second to think]  
 **FATHER DELANEY** : Is there anything else on your mind, Agent Allman?  
 **DEAN** : [Chuckles] What if I said I…I didn’t want to die…yet, you know, that I wasn’t ready?

Father Delaney encouraged him to do some “serious soul-searching,” and that’s exactly what Dean did. And now faced with the grief of Cas’s death, he’s stuck back in this same spot, but from the opposite side of the equation. Which is horrifically not the side of the equation Dean ever thought he’d have to face… Not after Cas’s whole, “everyone you love could be long dead, except for me.” Dean was entirely unprepared to ever have to face  _this_. He may have been prepared to mourn his own death, but Cas’s? He just can’t.

 

 

[spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [spn 10.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.15) [spn 10.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.16) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)


	159. Chapter 159

[Nov 2, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167069081615/what-do-you-think-about-the-line-whispers-i)

379 notes

**[despairbby](https://despairbby.tumblr.com/) asked: What do you think about the line '*whispers* I know who you love in the recent episode? In my opinion, it could be 50/50 for who Cas 'loves'. Dean in a romantic sense or the Winchesters as a whole. I dunno... the whispering part kinda got me though.**

HE WHISPERED BECAUSE IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE SECRET. OR TABOO. Or since his next line, part of the same sentence even, was “what you fear” I’m thinking Cas’s fears might directly relate to who he loves…

But NOTHING ELSE in the episode– or even in that scene– suggested that “the Winchesters as a whole” were utterly destroyed by their grief over Cas’s death.

This is the narrative negative space I was referring to in my “remind me to write about the thing” post I made for myself a few minutes ago.

I don’t have the entire transcript in front of me at the moment, but Sam and Dean’s conversation at the beginning of the episode was a direct callback to Dean’s screaming fit from the end of 13.03. Where he CAN’T get over what happened to Cas, and yet when Sam specifically talks about Mary, Dean feels like Sam should just get over HER loss, and tells Sam that HE’S moved on…

And Sam is like, You… you’ve just moved on… I guess you don’t remember your screamathon about how you can’t get over losing Cas… that was like yesterday Dean, and you’re just….

*crickets*

*more crickets*

(that’s the narrative negative space you’re supposed to fill in with BUT CAAAAAASSSS!!!!!!!)

Bookended at the end of the episode with Sam thinking Dean really *IS* getting over it when he tells Sam to keep the faith and seems in much better spirits… but then Dean essentially tells Sam “well nope I’m actually literally dead inside because of what I’ve lost.”

And then we have Cas waking up in a field and looking up at the sun.

GOOD MORNING SUNSHINE.

So honestly, if you look at the episode as a whole, they’re basically punching us all in the collective face with this at this point.

 

[spn 13.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.04) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[they're not even bothering to be subtle about it anymore](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/they%27re-not-even-bothering-to-be-subtle-about-it-anymore) [despairbby](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/despairbby)


	160. Chapter 160

[Nov 3, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167096626335/i-dont-believe-in-a-damn-thing-cuts-to-cas)

74 notes

**Anonymous asked: "I don't believe in a damn thing." CUTS TO CAS.**

THIS IS TERRIBLE, RIGHT?! I mean, when Dean didn’t believe in HIMSELF Cas was always the one who was there for him.

Back in 4.16 when Dean said it was too much, Cas stayed by him. When Dean had faith in NOTHING, Cas showed up and gave him something he could put his faith in. Despite some bumps (hello s6, which Cas has been trying to redeem himself for ever since), Cas has always been this for Dean.

Dean thinks he’s not a role model?

Cas may not realize it, but HE IS Dean’s hope…

 

[spn 13.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.04) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

[Nov 3, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167099198160/castiel-in-a-dark-empty-place-and-him-alone-is)

29 notes

**Anonymous asked: castiel in a dark, empty place, and him alone is not dark. what else is dark on the show? the inside of dean's chest? his broken soul? whats missing? ah, castiel. the missing piece of dean's soul. the soul is so broken it cant even hear castiel's calls. dean's soul is totally shut down. but if castiel persists, he can bring the light back to that empty place, and make dean's soul shine again. To raise Dean's soul from perdition once more.**

Yeah… Dean (dressed in dark colors) sitting on a white sofa with a bright empty spot next to him, while Cas was the only spot of light in the infinite void of darkness? I’m sure they weren’t trying to imply anything with that.

But see, now Cas needs to address those things Qstiel brought up… what he hates, who he loves, and related to that what he fears…

Because this isn’t just about what DEAN needs to feel whole again (instead of empty!). This is also about what CAS needs to feel whole again. As much as Dean needs Cas, Cas needs to have Dean lay those fears to rest.

 

[spn 13.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.04) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	161. Chapter 161

[Nov 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167108805445/i-love-how-they-are-repeatedly-hammering-home-the)

61 notes

**Anonymous asked: I love how they are repeatedly hammering home the idea that no matter what happens--Mary could come back, the world's problems solved, etc.--it will all be bittersweet with an underline sadness for Dean unless he gets Cas back. Sam loved Cas but his void is Mary. Dean's is Cas. Mary coming back would make Sam feel a LOT more whole again. Dean needs Cas back for that and it's not even subtext at this point.**

Yep. I mean, I don’t even know what to add here. That’s literally the text of the show at this point. 

[spn 13.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.04) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

[Nov 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167140939245/dean-seems-to-be-doing-even-just-a-little-better)

18 notes

**Anonymous asked: Dean seems to be doing even just a little better this ep. But I think the end of the ep really exemplifies that there's still something missing. That's the running theme. No matter how adjusted they get, or what kind of closure they get (Jack got to work through some Kellie feelings, Sam got some feelings out and he and Dean had a nice little feelings talk at the end) there will always be a hole there. Dean might do better or even ok. But there's the hole. And the reason he can't have faith.**

Yep, and even if he never said exactly what was causing that hole, we can still hear his screaming from last week echoing through all those empty spaces.

 

[spn 13.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.04) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)\

 

 

 

 

[Nov 6, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167215030055/i-may-be-overthinking-this-but-i-need-help-working)

26 notes

**Anonymous asked: I may be overthinking this but I need help working it out. The Empty said he knows who Cas loves. My mind surprisingly didn't jump to destiel, but to the Winchesters as a whole. But Cas already said he needed to get back to the Winchesters, so the Empty meaning them when he said the love line is like "yeah dipshit I just told you that." It seems redundant and pointless and not a surprise at all? Like of course he loves them we knew that. Unless he meant something specific Cas is hiding. Yes? No?**

There was no need to whisper it like it was a secret if it wasn’t a secret. There was also no reason to cut to a reaction of Cas’s face, which looked both shocked and pained on having been “called out” on this… I mean… it’s not complicated math.

He loves someone, but the Empty had already called bullshit on his “I need to get back to Sam and Dean.” And he’s not ashamed of his love for them. I mean, he confessed it in actual words the previous time he thought he was dying. He’s not ashamed or afraid to admit that.

Yet the way the Empty phrased this, combined with his reaction, is like the world’s biggest neon sign flashing and pointing here.

 

[spn 13.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.04) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 


	162. Chapter 162

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cowboy. hats.

[spn 13.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.05) [spn 11.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.21) [spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [spn 12.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.03) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)

[Nov 14, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167477064820/thejabberwock-is-dean-some-sort-of-default-homing)

522 notes

  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/e0cdee9389bf590c0309ecbaf3e6c624/tumblr_oz5xoprCZc1vvk81io1_540.gif)   


  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/d5ec02ec6997b730b56662cc4ab70a42/tumblr_oz5xoprCZc1vvk81io2_540.gif)   


[thejabberwock](https://thejabberwock.tumblr.com/post/167310464967/is-dean-some-sort-of-default-homing-beacon-for):

> Is Dean some sort of default homing beacon for Cas? Whenever Cas shows up unexpectedly and then wonders where Sam is, makes me think he zeroed in specifically on Dean, because otherwise why doesn’t he end up where Sam is? {5.03/8.10}

I guess whatever frequency Cas focuses on to find them is only emitted by Dean. Even if it’s not a prayer… what else is it that Cas can use to locate people, which he seems unable to detect Sam with, yet unerringly leads him to Dean, and one (1) time led him to Claire?

  

 

[it's the longing duh](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-the-longing-duh) [longing in technicolor](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/longing-in-technicolor) [spn 5.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.03) [spn 8.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.10) [spn 10.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.10) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [i mean really explain it another way](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-really-explain-it-another-way)

[Nov 14, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167488396840/mittensmorgul-were-finally-gonna-watch-it)

74 notes

[](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/image/167488396840)  


[mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167473329630/were-finally-gonna-watch-it-tonight-mr-mittens):

> We’re finally gonna watch it tonight. Mr mittens knows nothing.
> 
> Check that… he got the spoiler on Billie being Death now, but he was utterly unsurprised. He doesn’t know HOW or WHY, just that she is. But everything else, he’s in the dark. Time to go watch… I’ll report back later with my findings.

Okay, we watched. He LOVES Billie, and everything surrounding her promotion, which I’m not surprised about at all. :D

He also agrees that this season has gotten better with each episode, and he’s anxious to see what happens with Cas– how he fits in with Jack (who he called “our lil Nougat.”) When I laughed at that, he’s like EVERYONE CALLS HIM LITTLE NOUGAT. He’s still waiting for Jack to go darkside. He’s picked up on all the shadows since that first shot of Jack in 12.23, and has been surprised by how much of a naif Jack has been… his word. He said he’s still seeing “flashes” of Jack’s darker potential, but he also sees the struggle Jack is going through himself, and is really impressed that the show took this route because it makes Jack a much more complex and nuanced character.

He gets that Dean sees himself in Jack (like his demon/MoC self) and that’s part of why he’s so short with Jack. At this point in our chat, I mentioned how Jack is a great functional mirror for ALL of TFW– Sam vs his own internalized feelings of being evil via the demon blood and being Lucifer’s vessel, as well as Cas’s “dual nature” of angel and human. And he agrees, which is part of why he’s so impressed with everything I mentioned in the previous paragraph. :P

He can’t WAIT for next week, to see what happens now that Cas is back. I didn’t even need him to fill in the blank at the end of the episode. He was yelling HELLO DEAN at the tv in a remarkable impersonation of Cas. But he gave kudos to the show for not filling in that blank for us, for making us do the work ourselves.

(it should be noted that all during this chat, we’ve had 1.04 playing on TV– Specky the Wonderdemon! He cut me off at one point to ask if the early episodes were noticeably “darker” with light and shadows, and I told him s1 was shot on film, and the rest were shot on video, and he got it. He studied film in college, and it was HIS turn to go off about lighting and camera angles and film vs video, which led to a long detour through how everything is intentional. He basically said, “yeah they don’t just switch on random lights and turn on the camera and say go and start acting.” Which led to an even longer detour through how awesome Serge Ladouceur and Jerry Wanek are, where I detoured through why we write meta on beer signs and paintings. He agreed with me, basically saying yes, there are entire DEPARTMENTS dedicated to set design and decoration and lighting and none of it is random.)

Which led to more talk about Sam not really understanding Dean despite thinking he does, pushing beer and chili fries and strippers on Dean as if getting back to his usual routine would be enough to “fix” Dean because it always has been in the past. It’s not about “fixing” Dean to just be that guy that cares about everything anymore. And how much Dean’s WANTS have evolved over the years.

I essentially broke down Performing Dean for him, the codependency with Sam and Dean’s “parentification,” and why that’s just not enough for Dean anymore, and how from the 13.06 preview after watching Dean basically walk through the first five episodes of s13 like a dead man, just having Cas back is enough to bring some of the joy back to his life (TIM POINTED THIS OUT. I DIDN’T NEED TO DO IT FOR HIM.)

Basically, he loves that Dean is “evolving” and not finally being able to BE this way, because if he was just that macho swagger dude from the start of the series, the show would’ve ended after s1, because nobody would’ve wanted to watch 13 seasons of such a two-dimensional character. I pointed out that Dean’s been written this way from the start, where the swagger was literally the act he put on just to get through the day. We watched 1.03 yesterday on the TNT loop, and I reminded him that that was the THIRD episode of the entire series, and it laid out this bit of a shock for Sam that early on about who Dean really is as a person, underneath all the swagger. But Dean’s got bigger problems at the time, between Sam’s recent trauma with Jess, his recurring nightmares that Dean doesn’t yet know are actually psychic visions, their search for John… Dean does his best to keep himself as “normal” as possible because SOMETHING has to feel “normal” amid all this other horror.

Basically we had a REALLY long chat hitting all the meta highlights from s13… including the fact that s12 was about mothers, and s13 is about fathers.

He’s THRILLED to see what happens next week, and he’s THRILLED that Cas is back. Yes, he knows Dean looks so happy next week because he’s got Cas back, and again, he’s not surprised in the least.

 

[spn 13.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.05) [casual viewer stories with mr mittens](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/casual-viewer-stories-with-mr-mittens) [this is a steve yockey appreciation blog](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-a-steve-yockey-appreciation-blog) [this is a jerry wanek appreciation blog](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-a-jerry-wanek-appreciation-blog) [this is a serge ladouceur appreciation blog](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-a-serge-ladouceur-appreciation-blog) [spn behind the scenes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-behind-the-scenes) [silent storytelling](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/silent-storytelling) [visual narrative](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/visual-narrative) [performing dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/performing-dean) [want vs need](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/want-vs-need) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [the ghost of john winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-ghost-of-john-winchester)

 

 

 

my comments on this message from lizbob: http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167492330115/new-to-fandom-just-caught-up-and-falling-down

 

Great now I’m thinking that instead of longing, Cas was picking up on Dean’s “darkness” during the entire MoC arc (maybe cut temporarily while he was a demon, since Cas had been shocked to learn about that), but heck, what if Dean’s feelings about himself during that time nudged Cas’s trip down through his own darkness and depression?

Which culminated for both of them in their recent (back to back) deaths and resurrections…

(I screamed about this theory directly at lizbob, and this was the result:

But now what is he feeling from Dean? At that phone booth?  
Did he feel this huge FWOOMPFH of CASCASCASHE'SALIVEYOU'REALIVE and the sudden overwhelming relief and wonder and happiness? I hope so

elizabethrobertajones  
AAAHA  
HE FELT DEAN MOVING TOWARRRDS HIM  
ALL THE DRIVE DRIVE DRIVE AT THE END WAS A POINT OF PINING MOVING TOWAAARDS CAAAAS  
mittensmorgul  
YES

elizabethrobertajones  
I mean it WAS meant to make us FEEL the drive

elizabethrobertajones  
but what if OUR visual was Cas’s FEELING  
OH NO  
WE WERE IN ON THE PIIIINING  
THE PINING WAS THE DRAMATIC IRONY ALL ALOOOOONG  
mittensmorgul  
AND IT WAS ONLY HOURS AFTER DEAN HAD BEEN ~DEAD~ AND SO DEEP IN DESPAIR HE’D WANTED TO ~STAY DEAD~ AND THEN HE HEARD CAS’S VOICE AND *LIGHT SHINES ON DEAN’S FACE* AND AND AND

*CUE INTENSE LONGING*

elizabethrobertajones  
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

* * *

So thank you for this image, because now I can’t unsee any of this. :D

The longing retcon is either the best or worst thing that’s ever happened to us, honestly.) 

[spn 13.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.05) [spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn 12.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.09) [spn s9](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s9) [mark of cain](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mark-of-cain) [longing in technicolor](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/longing-in-technicolor) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel)

 

 

 

[Nov 14, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167494207220/theyve-made-so-many-things-clear-this-season-so)

31 notes

**Anonymous asked: They've made so many things clear this season so far. The blank spaces can only be filled with "because they're in love" and people are taking notice. Now, the question is, will they continue as they are, to just allow the audience to continue filling in the spaces, or will they eventually take the canon plunge? I hope so. I sincerely hope this long, painful, beautiful journey ends with something tangible and undeniable to show for it. But I guess we'll just see:-) S13 is BRINGING the A game!**

YES IT IS! Oh my gosh, it just keeps getting better and better!

Part of the story that’s also part of the narrative structure itself is the theme of clarification– moving from generalizations toward specificity, giving more precise responses.

Like, Sam knocks on Jack’s door and says, “It’s me. It’s Sam.” Generalization –> specific. CLARITY!

So while it’s becoming more and more obvious how to fill in the narrative gaps, the other side of the coin demands clarification and specificity. They need to use their words, and they need to clarify “need” into “want.” All of this is built into the structure just as much as the obvious “because they’re in love” gaps that you mentioned.

This season is going to kill us, probably. :P

 

[spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

[Nov 23, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167814663930/okay-but-i-think-its-so-funny-that-dean-just)

42 notes

**Anonymous asked: Okay, but I think it's so funny that Dean just kind of left Cas high and dry with the Val Kilmer thing. Like, normally when Dean introduces himself in a cover, he usually introduces whoever's with him too with a "and this is my associate..." But last episode Dean just kind of left Cas hanging. I just thought it was hilarious, and Cas' expression showed it too. Like, as dorky as Cas is, that whole thing was kind of on Dean 😂**

YES, I NOTICED THAT!

When he and Sam introduce themselves, the one to do the introductions usually gives BOTH names, “I’m Agent Plant, and this is my partner Agent Page…” or “Agents Collins and Gabriel, we’d like to ask you a few questions…”

But it’s like he was letting Cas get in on the “playing Tombstone” action, after their little talk in the car. Cas even quoted the movie! I think Dean was waiting for him to pull out the huckleberry accent again. Poor Cas, though… Dean was expecting him to just say, “Marshal Kilmer”  and instead Cas wasn’t expecting to have to actively participate yet.

Honestly, I think Dean really did just want to hear that accent out of Cas again. :P

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [yeehaw](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yeehaw) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 


	163. Chapter 163

[Nov 14, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167494624990/dean-has-already-accepted-that-mary-has-died-but)

40 notes

**Anonymous asked: Dean has already accepted that Mary has died, but not with Cas. So the only reason Dean felt like he doesn't matter anymore? Cas' death it is. So when he admitted that if it was his time to go so be it because no one can save him anymore as Cas who saved him before has now died. But when he gets the phone call Cas is back and save the day as light washes Dean's face (which seems like a subtler approach to 4x01 when Cas saved Dean in Hell because there's 1 thing that is now present: feeelings)**

I KNOW. IT’S BEEN MURDERING ME FOR DAYS.

Because it goes even one step beyond that. There were surely other ways Sam and Dean could’ve gone about releasing those ghosts from the Meadows. Going right from “what do we do now?” to “I guess I have no choice but to shoot this poison directly into my heart” seems like a MASSIVE overreaction to releasing a few trapped souls, you know? I mean, I *personally* would’ve considered just torching the whole mansion before moving on to suicide to chat with said ghosts.

It wasn’t just that Dean had a “so be it, if it’s my time then I’ll go” attitude, it’s that he actively put himself in that position in the first place with barely a second thought for any of it.

He wasn’t crouched over his body while Sam tried to revive him, screaming and wailing and desperate to get back to Sam, you know? And once he saw Billie, he easily resigned himself to his fate. He didn’t even raise a fuss with her about it, or try to plead with her or anything.

At the end, he had to resign himself to the fact that she WASN’T sending him on to the Empty after everything… he had to resign himself to the fact that she had even more work for him to do.

And then he gets the call from Cas, and for the first time in weeks the light literally shines down on his face.

 

[spn 13.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.05) [suicide mention](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/suicide-mention) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	164. Chapter 164

[Nov 14, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167500901105/there-were-some-unusual-or-interesting-shots)

27 notes

**[mybonsai1976](http://mybonsai1976.tumblr.com/) asked: There were some “unusual” or “interesting” shots of Baby towards the end of the episode. Could you elaborate on how those shots relate to Cas coming back and the state of Dean’s soul?**

Hi there! I saw this message when you originally sent it, but I had no way to go back and look again until I rewatched the episode last night (and I’m still struggling to catch up to my inbox and the dash in general… so many good posts and so many pics of COWBOY HATS to derail my attention… apologies to everyone else still waiting for a reply from me, I am trying!)

Of all the screenshots and gifs I’ve seen, I think this one image sums up everything you asked about the best:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167461989635/postmodernmulticoloredcloak-love-the-cross>

The Impala, right as it pulls up to where Cas is waiting, the light of the phone booth gleaming off the front of the car, the Bison Bud’s bar sign glowing like a moon and the reflection of the First Street Mission cross on the back window.

The occupants of the car are in shadow, but they’re about to step out into the light. Cas is also in shadow, but he’s about to turn around and see Dean, and the whole thing is about to get a hell of a lot brighter.

It’s still night, it’s still shadowy and dark, but they’ve found each other and Cas is gonna be back in his place with his family. And there’s a huge unspoken (as of yet) thing still hanging between Dean and Cas.

They’ve literally built that unspoken thing into the visual narrative, into the structure of the story itself. And it’s all reflected right there in this shot.

 

[spn 13.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.05) [silent storytelling](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/silent-storytelling) [great now i am having feelings about a car again](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/great-now-i-am-having-feelings-about-a-car-again) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [visual narrative](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/visual-narrative) [mybonsai1976](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mybonsai1976)


	165. Chapter 165

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a bit of a diversion via ask messages

 

 

 

 

[Nov 15, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167522082270/i-was-just-wondering-how-aware-you-think-everyone)

24 notes

**Anonymous asked: I was just wondering how aware you think everyone in tfw is of how Cas and Dean feel. I used to be in camp Sam knows, but now I think Sam knows that Cas loves Dean, but doesn't realize Dean loves Cas romantically. The empty scene implied to me that Cas knows he loves Dean but thinks it's unrequited. Dean seems to be the most aware. I get the impression that he knows that he and Cas love each other but probably thinks it's impossible. What do you think?**

Eh, we waffle a lot on the subject, don’t we? :P

Sam Knows is a fun trope in fic, but heck if he seems to be completely oblivious in canon sometimes. I don’t think he’s unaware that Dean and Cas are close; like, closer than he is with Cas. I think he’s definitely aware that a difference exists, but I don’t think he really understands the full and honest nature of that difference.

Partly because Dean has spent a lot of energy repressing it himself, you know?

 

 

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [wherein sam is a reluctant dunyazade](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wherein-sam-is-a-reluctant-dunyazade) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Nov 15, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167532698115/hmm-well-we-know-dean-and-cass-narrative-isnt)

15 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hmm. Well we know Dean and Cas's narrative isn't all wrapped up and done. I can't wait to see where the rest of this season takes them <3 Because you know Dean isn't going to take this for granted ever again, even if he can't/hasn't verbalized it yet.**

Absolutely. I can imagine he’s going to be put into some interesting circumstances that are going to require him to (probably with increasing frequency and intensity) clarify what he wants from Cas.

And vice versa. :P

 

 

 

[spn s13 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-speculation) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [seriously we're getting to the part of the book where the dialogue breaks are getting longer and more personal](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/seriously-we%27re-getting-to-the-part-of-the-book-where-the-dialogue-breaks-are-getting-longer-and-more-personal) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 

[Nov 15, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167532738635/yo-can-you-believe-dean-starting-the-day-with-a)

20 notes

**Anonymous asked: yo can you believe Dean starting the day with a PB &J and sobriety (not coping). had he been thinking of human Cas all night? I'm a tremble. and Cas did it-- for love of life, courage and stubbornness, Cas came back with a win for Dean. He came back. (a win for Dean). and they seem to be having a beer run impala scene next ep, but IN COWBOY HATS, and Dean's been in Honesty Mode! TELL HIM HE'S UR WIN, DEANO**

oh gosh. the beer run in coWBOY HATS?!

 

 

 

[spn 13.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.05) [spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [the beer run-- cowboy edition](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-beer-run---cowboy-edition) [yeehaw](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yeehaw) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

 

[Nov 15, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167533180050/im-just-so-happy-beyond-belief-at-the-upswing-in)

117 notes

**Anonymous asked: I'm just so happy beyond belief at the upswing in atmosphere and general direction the past couple seasons. The bros define their relationship to each other and others by "i'd die for you." But I love that they're starting to realize that "I wanna live for you" is a way to go about life too.**

I KNOW, RIGHT?!

[I WANNA LIVE FOR YOU PLEASE LIVE FOR ME](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/I-WANNA-LIVE-FOR-YOU-PLEASE-LIVE-FOR-ME) [spn s13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

[Nov 16, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167560807905/watching-route-666-on-tnt-and-thinking-about-all)

8 notes

**Anonymous asked: Watching Route 666 on TNT and thinking about all of the mirrors and parallels that Show does. Wouldn’t it be amazing tonight if we get a line from Sam advising Dean to talk to Cas about the serious unfinished business like he said to do with Cassie? And wouldn’t it be amazing if we got such a scene between Dean and Cas being heated with each other about their crossed signals over the years and then end up in bed just like Cassie? Ok, I know, I know! Girl can dream!**

HAHAHA! Yeah, that’ll probably be half the coda fic by tomorrow morning, but narratively they can’t actually go there yet…

unless they want it to end like Dean and Cassie did. And none of us want that.

So I will take all the coda fic that doesn’t have to account for the future narrative, while waiting and watching the nonsense that evolves from what will potentially mirror some Dean’s relationship issues from his past, but standing them on their head in order to subvert and grow beyond those old problems. Because what Dean has with Cas now? Yeah… It’s very different on every level.

 

 

[spn 1.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-1.13) [spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[Nov 16, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167564866535/oh-frigging-heck-the-cross-behind-dean-and-the)

51 notes

**Anonymous asked: oh fRIGGING HECK the cross behind Dean and the churchy BGM**

also this one, I assume:

> and the hoarse sound Dean made gOD

I agree.

Also, Dean saying “I do” and then slowly walking to Cas while maintaining eye contact and pulling him into a hug, and the ensuing face journey, and fucking calling Cas “PAL” oh my god you idiot.

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [HASHTAG MARRIED](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/HASHTAG-MARRIED) [fucking PAL like this is me talking to mr mittens istg](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/fucking-PAL-like-this-is-me-talking-to-mr-mittens-istg) [actually i usually call him chumley but whatevs it's the same feel as pal :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/actually-i-usually-call-him-chumley-but-whatevs-it%27s-the-same-feel-as-pal-%3AP) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[Nov 16, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167574078980/ill-be-your-huckleberry-are-you-freakin)

446 notes

**Anonymous asked: "I'll be your Huckleberry" are you freakin' KIDDING me?!**

NO WE AREN’T KIDDING.

I thought it was “I’m your huckleberry.”

*goes back and rewatches*

IT IS. CAS PUTS ON AN EVEN GRUFFER COWBOY VOICE TO SAY IT, TOO. AND DEAN HAS TO CLOSE HIS EYES AND CLENCH HIS JAW AND SWALLOW HARD BEFORE REPLYING, “YEAH, EXACTLY.”

Just… bury me with this whole entire scene.

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [I'M YOUR HUCKLEBERRY omfg](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/I%27M-YOUR-HUCKLEBERRY-omfg)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[Nov 16, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167578266875/did-sam-seem-bemused-to-actively-suspicious)

98 notes

**Anonymous asked: did Sam seem bemused, to actively suspicious, trying to figure out Dean's emotional 180? HE didn't expect that Cas was the win Dean was looking for. and Sam's "fair enough" sounded borderline peeved. that all that grief really did come down to Cas, and idk what, Mom is chopped liver? maybe frustrated, after all his efforts to cheer up performing!Dean. maybe jealous that Dean gets his missing piece back. was he like a hetero-goggled GA stand in right then? if he didn't know before~ how about now~**

Oh my god, “hereto-goggled GA stand in.”

Yeah, I think Sam was a little thrown, even after Dean’s wild screaming frenzy at the end of 13.03. I think Sam is probably a little disappointed that Dean got HIS win, while he’s still struggling with finding and saving Mary.

I mean, we know Sam didn’t really get it after 13.03 because he was still pushing at Dean in 13.05, like strippers had any hope of fixing Dean up again. He really didn’t get it.

I think Sam was definitely thrown by Dean’s turnaround just from getting Cas back. If he doesn’t get it that Cas was like 99% of Dean’s problems now, I’m gonna have to write Sam off as a hopeless case who’s gonna need Dean to spell it out with monosyllabic words for him.

 

[spn 13.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.03) [spn 13.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.05) [spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [sam sympathizes and dean empathizes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-sympathizes-and-dean-empathizes) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[Nov 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167578893315/sorry-if-you-get-this-more-than-once-of-all-the)

89 notes

**[andimeantittosting](http://andimeantittosting.tumblr.com/) asked: Sorry if you get this more than once. Of all the many, many things to love about this episode, I'm stuck on that silent exchange where Dean's getting into thevidea of going to dodge, and Cas just gives him a look, and he does that sheepish little head duck. It's such a funny moment, but also speaks volumes about their relationship and their fondness for each other despite their familiarity with each other's nonsense.**

YES. Oh gosh I just had an entire bodily squee reaction to this.

I’ve been mentally bookending that whole scene with their chat in the Impala, ending with Dean telling Cas he’s glad he’s back, because YES. It’s THIS.

Sam rolls his eyes at Dean’s nonsense, or makes fun of him, or dismisses or ignores it. Cas is sort of bemused by it, and while he gets that it makes Dean happy, he doesn’t always understand why, but it doesn’t really matter why, because Dean’s happy. It’s wonderful.

And Dean gets all huffy explaining things to Cas, and still having Cas not get it quite right, but heck he’s trying, and he gives back as good as Dean gives him, and it’s like they just get each other on a completely different level from anyone else. Even when they’re grumpy.

Oh gosh, Cas just matter of factly telling Jack that Dean’s an angry sleeper, like a bear. Like that’s just common knowledge and not a wildly weird thing to say about someone who’s sitting RIGHT THERE being grumpy? And Dean just accepts it, because of course Cas would say something like that.

I love them.

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [HASHTAG MARRIED](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/HASHTAG-MARRIED) [this reply is likely mildly incoherent and i'm not even sorry :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-reply-is-likely-mildly-incoherent-and-i%27m-not-even-sorry-%3AP) [andimeantittosting](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/andimeantittosting)

 

 

[Nov 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167591464060/was-sam-acting-weird-at-deans-emotional-turn)

35 notes

**Anonymous asked: Was Sam acting weird at Dean's emotional turn around? The whole scene felt weird to me. It really felt like Sam as proxy for GA to me. Give me some chill....oh god**

Hee, yeah, I [replied to another anon](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167578266875/did-sam-seem-bemused-to-actively-suspicious) last night who referred to Sam’s behavior as the “hereto-goggled GA stand in.”  So you’re not alone. :P

I ran out of chill last week when Never Too Late wedged itself in my brain where it’s been running on a loop since 13.05. There is no more chill.

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	166. Chapter 166

[Nov 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167592910170/i-love-that-cas-coming-back-was-not-just-a-win)

192 notes

**[willowywings](https://willowywings.tumblr.com/) asked: I love that Cas coming back was not just "a win" for Dean, but was in fact "a pretty damn big win". It continues this trend of Dean not even realising what he's said when it comes to Cas... i.e. "handsome" vs. "devastatingly handsome", "I just need a damn win" vs. "I said I needed a big win", etc. I'm sure there are a ton more, but my main point is that Dean keeps adding amplifying words to his statements when it comes to Cas. And he has yet to catch himself doing it.**

YES. CLARIFICATION!

“I said I needed a big win. We got Cas back. That’s a pretty damn big win.”

(I still can’t get over the fact that Dean opened the closet doors to begin that whole conversation, and then after Sam’s “fair enough,” SAM was the one who closed the closet doors on that whole convo. I mean… REALLY, SHOW?!)

Heck, even their conversation in the car touches on this in small ways, from Dean taking off the touristy hat band from Cas’s hat to make it look better, to Cas asking if Dean meant the town of Tombstone but Dean clarifies he meant the MOVIE and then reminds Cas about watching it… and mentions Kurt Russel (which was the alias Dean used in this scene), and Cas replies with a line from that movie which was both said BY THE ACTOR Cas was using as an alias, but the line ALSO worked as an answer to Dean on about four different levels… I’M YOUR HUCKLEBERRY with the put-on accent and even growlier voice than usual, proving he understood the reference, was ready to play his role, would follow Dean’s lead… And then Dean was so pleased by all of this he couldn’t resist blurting out an “It’s good to have you back, Cas,” with  the little hitch in his voice. I mean, EVERYTHING about this is brilliant.

It might not be a full clarification, but HECK THEY ARE GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER TO BEING ON THE SAME PAGE HERE. 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [yeehaw](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yeehaw) [need vs want](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/need-vs-want) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [willowywings](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/willowywings)


	167. Chapter 167

Nov 17, 2017

 

 

58 notes

**Anonymous asked: i'm sorry but this episode compared to five weeks of dean swallowed in grief was totally luckluster. we're at a point where the destiel heavy episodes are the ones where cas is absent, how do you explain that if not for chickenshit queerbaiting**

Did… did you actually watch this episode? I mean… actually watch it?

below a cut, because this is the sort of bullshit that pisses me off. Like, I’m sorry, but I’ve got an inbox FULL of people reveling and flailing about how amazing this episode was, and it takes just one pointlessly negative anon to just turn me into an angry bear…

(apologies to everyone, but sometimes it’s cathartic to reply to this kind of shit exactly the way it deserves to be replied to… normally I have the good sense and self-control to just save these replies to drafts where my salt can be preserved and contained like toxic waste, but sometimes the poison’s just gotta come out. Seriously, read on if you need yelling catharsis, but by the tone of this comment, you can probably guess the tone of the rest of my reply… y’all have been warned)

I have no idea what show you watched, but I am personally floored. Lizbob gave me the recap of the destiel in the first 20 minutes of the episode:

I’m only 20 minutes through this episode  
and Dean’s said “I do” to Cas  
and then Cas has described Dean’s intimate sleeping habits fondly  
and Sam asked wtf was up with Dean and why he was so happy  
and Dean was like

mittensmorgul  
and confirmed his cowboy fetish

elizabethrobertajones  
??????????///  
Cas?  
back?  
mittensmorgul  
DUH!

elizabethrobertajones  
and then the cowboy stuff happened  
And Sam wingman’d Dean and sent him off with Cas  
because Dean said he was happy because Cas was back  
so even though Jack and Cas were bonding, Sam was like, hey, I’ll go with Jack, you two go to the crime scene  
and Cas did ACCENTS  
in front of DEAN  
holy craaaap  
they watch movies together!  
mittensmorgul  
And Dean had to do the slow blink and the jaw clench to recover from the accent

elizabethrobertajones  
Athena’s wearing the same scarf David has around his neck.  
Lovers being coded by wearing the same stuff as each other, and if it wasn’t clear enough Cas had a red ribbon around his hat before Dean yanked it off, and they were matchy matchy cowboy hats when the rest of TFW2.0 wasn’t. 

* * *

And that whole scene with Dean and Sam confirming that five episodes worth of suicidal depression was reversed just because he got his big damn win by getting Cas back…  _was filmed from the pov of the interior of a closet_. 

Oh, and all the butts… the painting of a cowboy behind Cas, with his perfectly round lil assbutt, literally mirroring Dean, the way he’s standing and the clothes he’s wearing… when the big sign outside the motel is a female cowgirl… I mean… so much of this is silent storytelling, visual narrative, exactly the way it’s always been told, but it’s ALSO being brought into literal text.

I mean, I have no idea what you were expecting from this episode, but just THIS ^^ stuff FAR exceeded my personal expectations. Were you actually expecting blatant romantic love confessions and wall-slamming kissing or something?

I have no idea what your expectations are, but they’re not suddenly going to radically change the way they’ve been telling this story for the last 9+ years. It’s going to continue to unfold the same way.

Can we all just fucking chill with the “queerbaiting” accusations  _until the whole fucking series is over_. Until then, they’re still actively telling a story. They’re not going to jump directly to the end of the story they’re still trying to tell. I mean… if you’re watching week to week expecting Dean and Cas to suddenly jump into bed and confess their undying love, you’re gonna be disappointed. That doesn’t mean what they’re writing is “chickenshit queerbaiting.” And watching the show with the mindset that it IS, is gonna lead to anger and disappointment.

And also will clearly lead to overlooking what the ACTUAL story is ACTUALLY telling us. You’re watching looking for the full thanksgiving meal laid out on a table with the fancy china and the good silver and the lit candles, and the rest of us are still chasing the turkey through the woods, and are CONTENT TO DO SO because that’s like 90% of the fun. If you don’t like the actual storytelling, if it’s making you this upset, I don’t know what to tell you.

I just can’t watch the show with that sort of pre-angry mindset.

I’m the one who’s been tagging the destiel stuff “the scheherazade of supernatural” completely unironically, because that’s the way they are (and have been) telling this story. It took Scheherazade 1001 nights of telling her story for Shahryar to fall in love. Compared to that, Dean and Cas are positively ZOOMING through their own story.

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [wank](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/wank) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [i normally just delete anons like this because wtf how did you miss the point this badly](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-normally-just-delete-anons-like-this-because-wtf-how-did-you-miss-the-point-this-badly) [or how did you miss like everything i've written like... ever](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/or-how-did-you-miss-like-everything-i%27ve-written-like...-ever) [to the point where you thought i would actually agree with this message?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/to-the-point-where-you-thought-i-would-actually-agree-with-this-message%3F) [or are the anti trolls evolving to a new level?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/or-are-the-anti-trolls-evolving-to-a-new-level%3F) [i mean i'm having a really difficult time understanding how anyone who follows me and actually reads what i write](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-i%27m-having-a-really-difficult-time-understanding-how-anyone-who-follows-me-and-actually-reads-what-i-write) [can be this disconnected from how the show is telling the story](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/can-be-this-disconnected-from-how-the-show-is-telling-the-story) [i am honestly just baffled by it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-am-honestly-just-baffled-by-it) [also further anons along this vein will be summarily deleted](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/also-further-anons-along-this-vein-will-be-summarily-deleted) [because i don't have time for that negativity bullshit here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-i-don%27t-have-time-for-that-negativity-bullshit-here) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

[Nov 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167606013280/you-know-what-gets-me-too-and-what-i-think-that)

76 notes

**Anonymous asked: You know what gets me too and what I think that anon is completely missing among other things is that this could've been a *perfect* no homo, dude bro episode, being centered around cowboys and manliness and the rough and tumble wild wedt and all that. But it wasn't. It was very much about Dean and Cas with heavy romantic undertones and Dean's fanboy crush on dead cowboys! There was one offhand line about saving the girl but this ep ultimately subverted so many things in so many ways.**

Yep. I mean, if ever there was an episode where it would’ve been INSTANTLY easy to no homo everything, this was it. Instead of Dean geeking over cowboys in that ridiculous motel room, suggesting they all get a steak for dinner and then have an early night so they could work the case the next morning, Dean could’ve suggested they all go down to a bar to celebrate, and teach Jack about strippers or something. Or even just chatting up women at a bar, you know?

The no-homo-iest thing in the episode was Dean calling Cas “pal,” (which, right after saying “I do” and walking under the big glowy cross to hug him and welcome him home kinda even takes the no-homo edge off that…), EVEN PAL IS A REFERENCE TO FREAKING BILLY THE KID. I mean…  

The motel could’ve been decorated with scantily clad cowgirls instead of glowering old west outlaws. Instead we have him acting all married and borderline giddy to have Cas back, and running around like a kid at Disneyland.

Honestly the biggest no-homo they could’ve offered was to show that even his favorite things still didn’t have that shine they used to, but they  _specifically pointed it out in text that Dean’s love of cowboy stuff was just over the top_. Jack had never seen Dean so happy about anything, since Cas has been back.

Sam had explained to Jack that Dean was angry, and Jack overheard Dean yelling about exactly WHY he was angry (because Cas was gone), and then Cas comes back and suddenly Dean is like this entirely different person. I mean, even JACK figured this one out.

And while we’re on the subject, from another anon:

 

> lol what was that anon even expecting?? Dean and Cas to make out and declare their love right then? 

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[Nov 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167610358170/to-ping-off-you-and-that-other-anon-this-episode)

71 notes

**Anonymous asked: To ping off you and that other anon, this episode didn't focus on all that (women, booze, saloons, manliness, etc) because this was the REAL Dean. This wasn't performing Dean doing something he thinks he needs to do to maintain an image. This was Dean in an element he loved and felt comfortable in; he was geeking out and having a blast. Being happy and himself in the episode Cas came back in. Not a coincidence; Dean would not have enjoyed this case like he did if Cas were still dead.**

Yep. Jack may have suggested this case, but the second Dean heard Dodge City, he was gonna go even if he had to go alone. That little smile and accompanying cowboy whistling music? Yeah.

(which reminds me, Lizbob was yelling at me about this this morning, how Cas looked up at Dean the second that music started whistling, almost as if he could hear it, too. Like Dean was projecting his excitement about the cowboy hunt  _that hard_  that Cas picked it up like a prayer or something… Just… yes)

He was so clearly not performing. Even when he was LITERALLY performing, and coaching Cas through the performance they put on together for Sarge at the crime scene. He got Cas in costume (and Dean was so happy about this because HE ALREADY OWNED HIS OWN HAT AND BOOTS and brought them with him!), they discussed their aliases, and Dean even coached Cas on how to act (Like you’re from Tombstone. The town? No, the movie.).

I don’t think he would’ve splurged on the fancy suite at the motel, he would’ve just been going through the motions like he had on the last few cases.

Some of his recent issues are still hounding him– like that whole thing where he chases the Bad Guy, nearly gets run over by a moving vehicle, and then loses the Bad Guy.

But he still got to play cowboys (or Texas Rangers) with Cas, and it was clear that he loved every minute of it. Even the minutes he spent eyerolling at Cas and his almost-but-not-quite getting that reference.

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [performing dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/performing-dean)


	168. Chapter 168

[Nov 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167594918500/omg-i-was-already-rewatching-13x06-and-came-to)

76 notes

**Anonymous asked: Omg I was already rewatching 13x06 and came to your blog to freak out about how in the "that's a pretty damn big win" Sam closed the doors of the drawer like that was such an unnecesary moment and I felt like it could mean "he's out of the closet for me, these doors can shut down forever there's no going back in" or the other way around idk. And then saw u were commenting about it just on your last ask and gods thank god I wasn't the only one seeing that**

DEAN OPENED THE DOORS!

THEY HAD THAT CONVERSATION ABOUT WHY DEAN’S SO HAPPY AND HE’S LIKE “WELL I GOT MY CAS BACK, OF COURSE I’M LE HAPPY NOW!”

AND SAM’S LIKE OKAY I GUESS THAT’S FAIR BUT… *CLOSES CLOSET*

Yeah, and the whole thing took place in the room with the saloon doors (you know, the kind that swing both ways?).

I mean, I had to watch the whole thing like three times through because I couldn’t believe it. 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [silent storytelling](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/silent-storytelling) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [i mean this scene was both which sounds contradictory](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-this-scene-was-both-which-sounds-contradictory) [but YIKES i mean YIIIIIKES it's like anvils falling everywhere levels of blatant](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-YIKES-i-mean-YIIIIIKES-it%27s-like-anvils-falling-everywhere-levels-of-blatant) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	169. Chapter 169

#  [Fair Enough.](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167600573730/fair-enough)

[Nov 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167600573730/fair-enough)

324 notes

The whole “closet scene” between between Sam and Dean, where Sam questions the sudden turnaround in Dean’s mood from the previous day’s– let’s call it  _existential despair_  and just move along. Dean explains his entire mood shift as a direct result of getting “a pretty damn big win,” i.e. having Cas back.

Sam is dubious, but he accepts Dean’s rationale, and concludes with, “Fair enough,” before shutting the closet doors.

At the end of the episode, the Sarge asks for an explanation of “what went on here,” and Dean answers with the absolute bare surface-level facts (he stopped a robber and murderer, and Dean was never there). Sarge answers, “Fair enough” just like Sam did.

Dean told Sarge nothing but truths (well, aside from his request that Sarge forget Dean was ever there…), but wow did he skimp on all the details… He left out all the stuff about the ghoul, how they were dragged through the underground of a graveyard, etc. Dean gave him the absolutely bare bones (pffft bare bones *thinks about “leftovers” as Dean tosses a hip bone to Cas*) story to handwave all those pesky inexplicable details with.

Which makes me think Sam still doesn’t get all the details about Dean’s feelings for Cas, and the fact that there is SO MUCH between the lines in what Dean said there that I’m not entirely sure Sam really understands yet. Just like Sarge didn’t keep pushing for details, neither did Sam. Yet they both knew there was far more to those stories, they let it go for now…

Yet one more example of the narrative negative space in the textual layer of the story. I swear watching s13 is like slipping through portals to alternate dimensions levels of meta goodness.

Fair enough.

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [narrative structure](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/narrative-structure) [narrative negative space](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/narrative-negative-space)[this is how stories work](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-how-stories-work)


	170. Chapter 170

[Nov 17, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167611470415/hi-about-jack-saying-the-things-dean-didnt-i)

119 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi, about Jack saying the things Dean didn't ("I missed you so much", "I begged for him to be back", "I wanted him back", etc.). Imo Dean says all of that with his reply to Cas asking how long he was gone. "Too damn long.". The way he says it without hesitation, without even thinking about it and with that waver in his voice combined with his facial expression; to me that's as close to an actual confession of all the feelings as can be expected at the moment. Thoughts?**

Yep. It was like a repeat of everything Dean said to him. And Cas might be fluent in Dean (he’s an angry sleeper, understanding that reference about Tombstone, playing along with Dean’s cowboy fetish, etc.), but I think this is an instance of Dean really needing to use all his words with Cas.

Yes, Dean knows what to say, “I do,” and “Welcome home, pal.” He knows what to do (hug Cas while trying not to cry or start blubbering and babbling, gotta hold it together…). And “too damn long,” it’s such a wildly unspecific phrase. Yes, it means that any amount of time gone is too long in Dean’s book, but Cas doesn’t have that context to understand. He doesn’t know if he’s been gone a day or five years at that point…

(I’m sure someone has clarified it for him, and he could’ve asked Jack and gotten the time down to the minute he’d been gone. But we didn’t see it.)

Which brings me to another point. SO MUCH happens offscreen, and we’re being instructed by the narrative in actual text to keep this fact firmly in mind while we watch. We’re being told that Dean and Cas watch movies together, that they talk to one another and hang out together and do loads of stuff that we never see or even hear about. But we’re being encouraged to assume that’s something they do regularly (well, when they’re both alive and around to do that sort of stuff…).

Which means we’re being encouraged to assume that during their long car trips they DID talk about how long Cas was really gone (and we haven’t had much in the way of timeline confirmation this season, but just assuming these episodes have all pretty much fallen on the heels of the previous one, we’re looking at about three weeks between when Cas died and when Dean told him he’d been gone too damn long). We have to assume they filled him in on Jack’s entire life to that point, on what happened to Mary and Lucifer, the fact Asmodeus was after Jack, and what they’ve been up to since then in general.

But does Cas REALLY get that what Dean said to him was “Dean Speak” for exactly those words that Jack said plainly? I’m not entirely sure he does. And whether he understands or not, he absolutely DESERVES to hear them from Dean.

I think it’s something that the major themes of this season– meaning these empty spaces that we’re slowly seeing filled, and the absolutely ridiculous emphasis on clarity and specificity– are going to force to the surface. Dean’s going to find that he needs to use clearer and more precise words here.

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [again another reason i use that as my destiel tag](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/again-another-reason-i-use-that-as-my-destiel-tag)[it's literally built into the narrative structure now](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-literally-built-into-the-narrative-structure-now) [need vs want](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/need-vs-want) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	171. Chapter 171

[Nov 18, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167625207750/i-just-noticed-that-dean-cantdoesnt-even-look)

53 notes

**Anonymous asked: I just noticed that Dean can't/doesn't even look at Cas when he says "it's good to have you back" in the car. And he does he averts eye contact when he pulls away from the hug too.**

I know, it’s like if he does look, he’s gonna break.

After the hug, he just looks so freaking overwhelmed, because he thought he’d NEVER see Cas again, and here he is, and his face goes on this marvelous journey through disbelief and relief and wonder and about 400 other emotions in the span of five seconds.

And in the car, after “I’m your huckleberry,” Dean has to close his eyes and do the jaw clench thing for a second to compose himself. He manages a “yeah, exactly” along with a lil head shake. Then he glances over at Cas and he looks profoundly pleased and relieved, but he looks away and his voice still breaks when he says. “It’s good to have you back, Cas.” But his happiness is absolutely undeniable.

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	172. Chapter 172

[Nov 18, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167629068510/so-hey-lets-talk-about-how-dean-immediately)

178 notes

**Anonymous asked: So hey, let's talk about how Dean immediately looks at Cas after Jack wakes him up and how his face softens at this sight. Aren't they cute?**

YES.

I mean, Jack’s “It’s me, it’s me,” (which I keep meaning to write more about, because it lacks any clarification) doesn’t really bring Dean any comfort, you know? But then he sees Cas looking apologetic, and half-asleep, it’s probably like Dean getting hit with that shock/relief/surprise/happiness of getting Cas back all over again. Because remember, this is like ONE DAY LATER. He’s still in the *blinkblinkblink* reaction phase where Cas being back is still NEW.

And then seeing Cas there is just enough of a relief that he lets himself go all sleepy and gooey again, and “who’s gonna make me coffee?” and of course it’s probably Cas, because Cas is good at that now. :)

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [you learned it from the goats](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/you-learned-it-from-the-goats) [because heck it's my cas vs coffee tag in addition to being my cas vs humanity tag :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-heck-it%27s-my-cas-vs-coffee-tag-in-addition-to-being-my-cas-vs-humanity-tag-%3AP) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	173. Chapter 173

# Clarification and Consequences

Nov 20, 2017

78 notes

I don’t normally write close-read reviews of episodes, but 13.06 is sort of demanding it. There’s just… a lot here. From the recap highlighting Jack’s fear of his own powers, Cas’s death and trip through the Empty, annoying a cosmic entity, a reminder that zombies exist followed by “what’s burned stays dead” and then Cas coming back, we have a tidy summary of the Major Stuff that’s happened so far this season.

Below the cut, over 8k words, and a vast number of links to other meta posts. I don’t think I can even bring MYSELF to read it all again, so it’s unedited. For anyone brave enough to read it, it’s probably long, boring, repetitive, and just a collection of details I wanted saved in one place for future reference.

(not technically meta, this is literally just a close read of the entire episode with annotations. This is like… pre-meta. Meta seeds scattered on soil. Just, fyi)

(all screencaps from [hotn](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fthumbnails.php%3Falbum%3D292&t=MWUxZjVkOGMxY2UwNjBjOTc3YzlmZDdhNjhkZDI3ODI5YzM0MGE0OSwxWEdnZnhrRA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F167721658495%2Fclarification-and-consequences&m=1))

Interestingly, Jack considers “being able to move a pencil with his mind” as “one good thing” he was trying to do, and honestly that’s a pretty damn non-thing to focus on, you know? It accomplishes nothing substantial. But like his first attempt at “teleporting” that involved him walking through a door and accidentally locking himself out of a motel room, followed shortly by accidentally booping himself out to the alley in an unintended emotional reaction to conflict, it seems they’re using this escalation to show how he comes to understand his own abilities.

In the THEN, they show him unable to move the pencil, but then using his powers in a similar way to deflect a bullet from hitting Sam. Arguably a “good thing” he did with his power, but he can’t repeat the feat on demand. It was an emotionally charged reaction, just like throwing the tattoo artist and shorting out his tattoo machine as an entirely unintentional reaction to physical pain. He wasn’t even aware after the fact that he had done anything.

Oh, and Cas is back! :D

That brings us to Dodge City, Kansas. Historical cowboy town. Dean is inexplicably hunting in a graveyard with a stranger, and their quarry seems to be getting the better of them. The man Dean’s hunting with comments that what they’re hunting is fast, but Dean clarifies, “Not faster than bullets.” They split up so Dean can flush out the bad guy, leaving Sarge to cover him. While Sarge is focused on where he expects the guy to come running out, a hand reaches up from below the ground, grabs his ankle, and drags him under.

Dean comes running back, sees the hole in the ground where Sarge had been (and his abandoned rifle and cowboy hat), and his response is, “Aw, hell.”

This is a really interesting choice of words. Big holes in the ground do tend to lead directly to Hell in this show. Like the portal Jack was tricked by Asmodeus into opening in 13.02, which itself was reminiscent of the portal to the Cage that Sam jumped into in 5.22. At least this particular hole isn’t filled with actual hellfire… but in this brief scene we don’t yet know how or why Dean is even hunting with Sarge. This entire scene is presented without context, as sort of a “remember this, there’ll be a quiz later” bit of info.

Then we cut to “48 hours earlier,” the reunion of Cas with Sam and Dean. Behind them, the road is shadowed in reddish light (hellfire, anyone?), Sam is framed against the Bison Bud’s sign, while Dean has the only white light on their side of the road framed over his shoulder the entire time– a glowing cross. Cas is framed beside the last working payphone in America, standing next to the blue and white lights. A siren blares in the background as Dean essentially asks for final confirmation that this really is Cas, while Sam sounds as if he’s insistently denying it was even possible.

Cas steps away from the phone, away from that artificial light, and yet he moves  _out_ of the shadows as he does so. Sam doesn’t know what to say (i.e. he doesn’t have words for this), but Dean does (I do. Welcome home, pal.) Hugging ensues. Then the questions start.

“How long was I gone?” and Dean replies, “Too damn long.” (this offers emotional clarity, about Dean’s  _feelings_ on the matter, but not actual facts that could put Dean’s feelings into context. If Cas had been gone for a week, this response would carry a lot more weight than if he’d been gone for say 10 years, you know? We assume that Cas will eventually see a calendar and that he  _will_ be able to understand that he was gone less than a month, but for right now he’s just got to file away this reaction for later scrutiny. Dean believes his feelings are clear, but to Cas they’re clear as mud.)

Sam asks if Cas was in Heaven, but Cas immediately clarifies he was in the Empty, and without prompting goes on to give Sam and Dean the Cliff’s Notes version of what he learned in 13.04. It’s where angels and demons go when they die.

Sam asks what it was like, and Cas gives the oddest details: “It was dark, and… nothing. [the light in this flashback flickers and whooshes out]  It’s like… nothing.”

Cas believed that Sam and Dean had done something to “wake him up.” Like Dean believed that Sam had been responsible for his salvation from Hell early in 4.01, but Dean told him no, they didn’t even think they  _could_ bring him back. In trying to figure out who DID bring him back, they eliminate Chuck as a possibility immediately, because he has no power in the Empty. The only being with unknown powers and any sort of connection to Cas, as well as a personal motivation for wanting Cas alive, is Jack… And if that ain’t the most unsettling development of 2k17.

When Sam and Dean arrived back at the bunker with Cas, Jack is hard at work on the laptop. He looks up at Sam, and immediately asks, “What’s wrong?” I’ll tell you what’s wrong… Sam is suddenly terrified that you can apparently unconsciously reach across the veil where even God is forbidden, and just boop dead angels awake.

But the show doesn’t give us a chance to truly internalize that horror. Instead, Cas comes in, and immediately the tone switches from wary to confused to relieved. Confused because Jack’s infantile knowledge of things can’t process how Cas can be alive when “what’s burned stays dead.” And then they ask Jack if he was the one who brought Cas back. Unsettlingly, Jack doesn’t know.

Jack explains  _his feelings_  toward Cas, how he wanted and begged for him to come back, but he doesn’t understand how those feelings affected his power into acting to bring Cas back.

Cas lets all of that go for the time being, and thanks him. I already made one post about how Jack’s “I missed you so much” just felt off to me. Like, this is a being you’ve never met in person before, but you power did latch on to before you were even born. Jack’s power used Cas like a vessel, and most of his first day of life was spent looking in vain for Cas, because he expected Cas to be there waiting for him. So I guess in that respect, he would’ve missed Cas. But it feels so excruciatingly  _wrong_ and creepy to me because of the nature of their entire previous interaction.

Then immediately after this reunion hug, we have another reminder that Things Happen Offscreen. “Sam and Dean tell me you’re doing well.”

Jack’s next thought is to eagerly demonstrate his advanced pencil levitation skills. Like, he’s showing off his Amazing Cosmic Powers to levitate a pencil a foot in the air, and yet the true reach of his powers in waking Cas up just slides past him because he doesn’t even know or remember  _doing_ that. The pencil trick is intent–>action–>immediate result. It’s a magic trick compared to resurrecting dead angels from the empty without even knowing you were doing it. But it’s like Jack still can’t identify himself as the source of Cas’s resurrection, so it’s not something he actually  _did_ in his mind. It’s an extension of his description of his powers from 13.01, “Me, but not me.” He actively tries to separate everything out so it can all be neatly classified and ordered and labeled. “Good or bad.”

Right now, resurrecting Cas and that shocking display of cosmic power is being classified as “not me” because he literally can’t wrap his head around the fact that he’d done it.

(also, here’s lizbob going on about the significance of that conversation happening in the library, of Jack working in the library in the “heart of the family” room: <http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167685945845/the-jackcas-hug-w-dean-in-the-background-strikes>)

But Jack’s found a case. He’s learned some basic computer and hacking skills from watching Sam and Dean, so he’s incredible at observation. This will also become important later, but it will also be important to notice where his rigidity of thinking and his lack of wider context and understanding outside of his own experience will also be important.

Dean asks what kind of case, and Jack eagerly replies, “Zombies!” He’s 100% absolutely convinced it’s zombies, because he knows what they are now. And granted, Jack’s intuition on finding the case, and his logic up to the point where “the dead are rising in Dodge City, Kansas” was pretty solid. He pieced together a case from a single report of a grave robbery involving a vintage pocket watch that someone had tried to sell at a pawn shop, but Sam pointed out it could’ve just been grave robbers… but Dean (partly because even the BODY was gone, and mostly because Dodge City means Cowboys) insists on checking it out anyway.

And yes, I’m making a mandatory side note here about the whistling cowboy music in Dean’s head at the mention of Dodge City, and the fact that for NO OTHER REASON, as soon as that music started playing, Cas glanced up and gave Dean the squinty-eyed  _wtf is that cowboy music about Dean are you seriously going to make me live through your cowboy fetish again today i’ve only been alive again for like a DAY and already you’re going to be going on and on about cowboys aren’t you_. Because there’s no other explanation for Cas’s face there, and his reaction to the music in Dean’s mind. Okay, back to our regularly scheduled meta. You’re welcome, Lizbob. :P

Two salty hunters, one half-angel kid, and a dude who just came back from the dead. Again. Team Free Will 2.0.

Which brings us to the Stampede Motel and Western Wear Shop. What a wild conglomeration of things in a single building. All your tack and motel needs in one easy destination. Because everyone on vacation at a tourist trap is looking to buy quality riding gear… Also, the horse statues out front of the shop have been bothering me. I keeping thinking that black and white one is a cow. I guess it could be a bad rendition of a paint horse, but yeeps:

I suspect it moos. I asked Lizbob if I was just nutty for thinking COW, and she suggested it may be part of a larger theme of misinterpretation being critiqued this season. I suggested (even though I will address all these things later in this post, I’m putting them here because I’m filing them all under “mooing horse”: Jack’s convinced ZOMBIES! but it’s a ghoul. He asks about cold spots and weird smells, but that’s irrelevant in either case. He tries using EMF in a graveyard… :P He says his power’s never done one good thing, while Cas is sitting alive ~right there~

Okay back to the show.

Dean’s all excited because not only did he pick this On Point Touristy motel, he got them the  _best room in the joint._ He doesn’t even pause to put down his luggage, including his fancy-ass hat box containing his genuine cowboy hat that he brought from home, before gleefully pointing out every last Old West historical figure depicted in their room.

Jack has never seen this side of Dean. Not just his thing for cowboys, but just  _Dean being happy_. Meanwhile Sam is rolling his eyes because he knows it’s not going to stop until they leave that place, and Cas has resigned himself to being included in whatever cowboy-related fuckery Dean throws at him.

(all entendres intended)

Dean pronounces the room “awesome,” then immediately suggests “quick shower, steak dinner” and postpones all hunt-related activity until morning. Through the swinging saloon doors to the bedroom, Dean begins hanging up their plastic-wrapped-from-the-cleaners suits. I think that’s the first time we’ve ever seen them with suits in that particular state. Yet another reminder that they do ~normal life stuff~ off screen, like taking their FBI suits to the cleaners. We don’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

Dean exclaims from the other room, “Yes! Stirrup hangers!” and heck I’m disappointed we didn’t actually get to see those… But THEEEMES because it happened offscreen, and we’re being invited to take Dean’s word for it. Are these hangers specifically FOR stirrups? Hangers in the shape of stirrups? Or made out of repurposed stirrups? How does that work? We just don’t know, but we have to use our imagination to fill in the blanks here.

Then we have the unsettling conversation between Jack and Cas about who will get the couch, since Sam and Dean already appropriated the two covered wagon beds for themselves. Jack offers the couch to Cas, because apparently he doesn’t really sleep anymore. Cas confirms that he doesn’t sleep at all. We’ve known that for ages, but the Jack-not-sleeping thing is new… But I addressed my concerns about this already in this post:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167644768190/all-of-the-stuff-between-jack-and-cas-this-episode> (posted below as *1)

I’ve already written several posts about the Infamous Closet Scene, too, while I’m bothering to look for links on my blog:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167600573730/fair-enough> (a few chapters back in this work)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167594918500/omg-i-was-already-rewatching-13x06-and-came-to> (also a few chapters back in this work...)

Dean opens the closet doors, and Sam can’t believe Dean brought his own hat. Dean can’t believe Sam didn’t. Meanwhile Dean’s busy unpacking with the reverse side of the cowgirl painting and her perky butt, the pose of which at one point I had to pause it, because I thought it was a mirror. Dean’s back was to it

But suffice it to say, this is a moment that underscores the very different things that Sam and Dean would consider a “pretty damn big win” respectively. Sam questions Dean’s good mood, suddenly turned around from the depths of despair, and he concedes Dean’s assertion that getting Cas back was what turned him around, while Sam’s struggling to understand how Dean could just ~forget~ about Mary… because that’s been Sam’s Major Issue since 12.23. He repeatedly has failed to understand that Dean’s Major Issue has been Cas.

And then we have poor Carl, the police officer investigating a stolen truck abandoned on the roadside. But it wasn’t quite as abandoned as he’d thought, and he ends up becoming Ghoul Chow because of it.

Meanwhile, we have to assume TFW 2.0 are busy enjoying that steak dinner Dean suggested earlier. Did all four of them go to a restaurant? Did they get takeout? Room service? Did Cas and Jack eat too, or just Sam and Dean? Was the restaurant as kitchy as the motel? Was Dean insufferable all through the meal? More things that happened offscreen, which we need to know about.

I’m gonna have to start tagging s13 as Season Fanfic Gap.

That brings us to the conversation that first make me want to write this post, before it turned into a gargantuan endeavor of a close read: Cas and Jack, not sleeping.

Jack is relating his Life Story, or what little of it there is, but he’s having difficulty with his level of understanding. He describes the angels that tried to kill him in 13.01, but then stops his storytelling, because he thought angels were “good.” Cas attempts to explain that in Heaven, “good’s a relative term.” But this has been one of Jack’s major problems. He doesn’t understand “relative.” He understands definite and unshakable labels.

But now Jack asks Cas what Heaven is like, because his mother is there and he wants to know that she’s happy there. But Cas has entirely too much baggage with Heaven from the entire opposite end of what a human soul would experience there, and of course that’s the description he defaults to– his personal experience there. He waffles and says “that depends,” and when Jack asks if it’s “nice,” he replies, “it can be.” All very waffly, middle-of-the-road, not-actually-answer answers.

Then Jack reminds him that Kelly is in Heaven, and Cas turns to talking about her while she’d been alive. Jack tells Cas about the “message” Kelly left him, that an angel was watching over him, and again Cas feels guilty that he wasn’t there for Jack from the beginning.

Jack understands, and says he knows why Kelly trusted Cas. Then clarifies that to, “Why  _I_  trusted you.”

There’s the creepy callback to 13.01 where 

Cas sits up at this, realizing that Jack  _remembers_  trusting Cas, before he was born.

Jack remembers feeling “safe” because of Cas. He’d felt decidedly  _unsafe_  multiple times (with Dagon who drove Kelly to attempt suicide, when Sam suggested trying the grace-removal cure, with Dean the moment Dean shot at him in his nursery, when the angels attacked the police station and tried to kill him, when Sam and Dean took him to get warding tattoos, when they were arguing with Donatello in the motel room in 3.02, in Mia’s office when Buddy was going to kill them all…), and we know how his power reacted to all of those circumstances. It immediately acted to make Jack feel safe again…

Cas continues to reassure Jack that Kelly would be proud of him, and that he believes Jack will help make the world a better place. I can’t help but think… better than what? How? Jack can’t even understand the subtleties of things not being objectively all good or objectively all bad. The idea of him reshaping reality is more than a little disturbing.

Jack gets a hit on the computer monitoring program he was running, and immediately goes to wake Sam and Dean to tell them what he’s learned about the case, despite the fact it’s 4 am and they’re sleeping.

Cue the “Dean’s an angry sleeper, like a bear” scene, reminding us that Cas really  _knows_  Dean, far beyond Jack’s excellent powers of observation could teach him in a few weeks’ time. Jack runs right over to Dean before Cas can stop him, and taps him awake. When Dean reacts like a hunter, pulling a gun from under his pillow, Jack leaps backward holding up his hands, telling him “It’s me, it’s me.”

He repeated a line, but  _didn’t_  clarify it. It reminded me of 13.03 when Sam knocked on Jack’s door, with “It’s me, it’s Sam.” We laughed at the time, because who  _else_  would it be, but it fit this theme of vague–>specific, that Jack just demonstrated a few minutes ago with his “she trusted you, I trusted you.” So while Sam and Dean are blinking themselves awake on their lil plaid pillows and snuggled up in their Trenchcoat Tan™ blankies, Dean blearily looks TO CAS and that’s what seems to reassure him:

“Who’s making me coffee?”

(We’re assuming Cas, because he got good at making coffee back in 9.06, when he got good at a lot of Human Things, and we know humans learned about coffee from the goats because of Cas and I have FEELINGS™ about this, Cas and coffee and humanity)

(okay lizbob had feelings too: <http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167707261095/elizabethrobertajones-elizabethrobertajones>)

(then we get a horn honking outside as Dean pours himself a cup, and the sun’s just beginning to rise outside, and while Cas confidentially tells Jack that he’d warned him about Dean being an angry sleeper, while Dean’s entirely within range of hearing this conversation and yet has no snarky retort and just lets Cas talk about him in this intimate personal way like nbd, like Cas (in 8.08) once sat on a motel room bed casually digging through Dean’s belongings and examining his toothbrush and Dean was equally nbd about it with zero commentary on Personal Space or ‘hands off my stuff’ or whatever… There’s just zero boundaries anymore)

Sam brings them back to the case, and Jack’s even finishing Sam’s sentences, eager that the victim being covered in bite marks seems to confirm his zombie theory. But Dean’s the one who chimes in with, “or like anything else that has teeth.” Because Jack’s so fixated on his zombie theory that he doesn’t yet understand that there are still OTHER OPTIONS here. As a hunter, it’s not practical to let one theory blind you to other possibilities.

Sam takes Jack (and his single-minded zombie theory) to the graveyard to investigate, while Dean grumpily finishes his coffee until he and Cas are ready to go investigate the crime scene. Division of responsibility at Sam’s discretion.

I mean, he chose the obvious pairings. Jack is so inexperienced and Sam feels he’s better able to deal with his level of enthusiasm and naivete than Grumpy Pre-Coffee Dean would be, and letting Cas take Jack on either side of this investigation would’ve probably led to some fairly bizarre and inexplicable interactions with the locals… but as a result, Dean and Cas get to hang out dressed as cowboys and playing Tombstone.

All through this scene, Cas has got this light behind him:

This lil glowing conestoga wagon. Y’all. You know what folks called these sorts of covered wagons, back in the day?  _[Prairie Schooners](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.americanheritage.com%2Fcontent%2Fprairie-schooner-got-them-there&t=NDNhZTc5MGRiNDZkMTFlYzk4ZGJjMmJiMmEyYjRlOWE5NDkxYzc1ZSwxWEdnZnhrRA%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F167721658495%2Fclarification-and-consequences&m=1)_ , because the canvas covers were reminiscent of the sails of a ship at sea. Okay, there’s your ship imagery for today.

Cas immediately gets up, but from just one lil hand gesture from Dean, he resigns himself to wait for Dean to finish his cup of humanity and sits back down.

We see the sun shining down through the branches of a tree while more whistly cowboy music plays and the Impala rolls up to the crime scene, parking in the middle of the road like Dean’s declaring ownership over the whole road. Dean gives Cas the rundown on how to handle the situation, how to “play his role” with the whole Tombstone conversation. And I mean, this entire scene has already been broken down and analyzed to bits so I’m gonna defer to these posts and save myself some typing, because this nonsense is already closing in on 4k words and I’m not even halfway through this episode:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167607867385/someoneworthfinding-here-are-my-babbling>

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167625399000/okay-but-cas-was-so-cute-when-he-said-youre-my> (part of a chapter in this work, a few chapters back)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167607370265/not-that-we-need-it-but-i-think-its-relevant-to>

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167631016525/clarification> (posted below as *2)

(note: some of those posts have been edited as I learned more about the movie Tombstone, so if you’ve read them before, note that they might be slightly different now… and more accurate… >.>)

Yet another callback to 9.06, Dean helping Cas improve his look, removing the stupid touristy hat band from Cas’s souvenir cowboy hat. Because Cas isn’t a “tourist” in Dean’s mind. Cas is “home.” And ain’t that just a heartwarming metaphor.

In the wake of Dean’s absolute pure happiness at having Cas back, for all his awkwardness, “Follow my lead, you’ll fit right in.”

*Space Cowboy plays as they slow-mo walk to the crime scene side by side*

*narrator voice: Cas totally tries, and seemingly does not “fit right in” with the locals, but hell if he doesn’t still “fit right in” with Dean, because despite the incredibly painful awkwardness, Dean’s still so glad Cas is back*

“HOWDY PARDNER.” “MUCH OBLIGED”  *woody from toy story cowboy walk*

So they meet the guy Dean believes to be the local Sheriff, who immediately corrects them to “Sarge,” CLARIFYING that the sheriff is on vacation. So the “lead authority” figure is away, and Sarge is acting as a stand in. He also immediately clarifies the very personal nature of this case, since he was deputy Carl’s uncle, and has known him since birth.

Dean introduces himself as “Russel,” and instead of also giving Cas’s alias as they so often do (even in 13.05, Dean introduces both him and Sam with “Agents Page and Plant” and then just moves right along with their purpose). He actively  _encourages Cas_  to be an active participant in his lil Tombstone roleplay. And Cas totally borks it, but he’s done no real harm to their covers and provided Dean a lil fond forehead slap/eyeroll moment.

At Dean’s prodding, Cas awkwardly comes out with, “Uh, Kilmer. My name is Val Kilmer.” And Dean’s like: 

But Cas knows how to introduce himself when they’re playing agents. It’s just this whole “playing the cowboy role” bit COMBINED with “playing law enforcement agents” bit that’s sort of thrown him off. He’s being asked to essentially take TWO SEPARATE THINGS and MAKE THEM ONE.

In the process, he gives us another bit of clarification, however awkward. “Kilmer” to “Val Kilmer.” broad to (arguably) far too specific. Sarge kinda side-eyes him, but shakes his head and accepts it. Finally moving along with what they’re doing there.

Sarge says. “What do you want?” not, “How can I help you” or “Why are you here,” but specifically WHAT DO YOU WANT. The “need vs want” theme again in text.

We get yet MORE clarification from Sarge. There’s a hell of a lot of vague–>specific in this scene. Imma use bullet points:

  * “His name was Carl Phillips.” and then he clarifies it as “Deputy Carl Phillips.”
  * “He is…  _was_  my nephew”
  * He describes the murder as “someone slit his throat and then left the body out for the coyotes to chew on” because in his experience these were two separate things, and yet we know that they are actually ONE thing (the ghoul who slit his throat ASLO did the chewing…)



Cas redeems himself completely with the sincerity of his “We are deeply sorry for your loss” So for Sarge, we know that in addition to this being about a fellow police officer, it’s also about family.

Sarge asks why a couple of Texas Rangers are interested in this case, and Cas nearly blows their cover  _again_ , about to revert back to their usual FBI cover, but Dean cuts him off and doubles down on the Texas Ranger Cowboy Roleplay. Like, even despite Cas’s awkward Worst Cowboy Ever act, Dean is not gonna drop the act. Dean covers them both with a believable story that they’re chasing a fugitive with the same MO as the grave robber Carl had been investigating when he’d died.

Sarge also delivers the warning that he intends to work this case outside the purview of his role as a law enforcement officer, because again,  _this is about family business._

And cut to the psychobilly and bubblegum pink embalming fluid aesthetic of Athena Lopez, mortician. She can’t hear Sam and Jack show up and begin asking her questions, because of her headphones and focus on her work, but eventually sees them out the corner of her eye and startles.

Sam apologizes for startling her, and introduces himself and Jack with their FBI aliases (notice they’re not Texas Rangers in cowboy costumes, they’re just FBI in normal suits). But Jack sorta wanders off and… I already wrote about this scene:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167601058715/athena-or-eileen-or-jack> (pasted below as *3)

And here Jack is SO FREAKING CONFIDENT that he’s mastered the Hunter Cover, that unlike Cas, he has no concept of just how wrong he is here. The absolute  _pride_  with which he asks Athena about “cold spots, or strange smells” which is entirely irrelevant to this case even if it HAD turned out to be zombies, but he just doesn’t get that there’s not some sort of formula or set script that always works in every hunt. Plus, Athena just told them she wasn’t there, and that only made Jack’s questions seem even  _more_  out of left field.

And this “completely missing the point” theme only continues as Jack and Cas check out the graveyard. If you’ve read all my linked posts so far, you’ve already read all about that… somewhere or other… so I’m gonna save more typing because we’re now creeping up on 5k words, and I’m STILL not even halfway through this episode.

Down in the grave, Sam finds not only a tunnel, but a bone. Jack asks what it is, and Sam’s reply is, “I think it’s–” and the scene cuts to Dean back at the motel holding the bone, teeth marks clearly etched on it. We THINK the answer is supposed to be specified to “hip bone,” or “human bone,” but Dean instead clarifies that it’s “LEFTOVERS.” Like, not only does this clarification give us some insight into Dean’s personality, but also highlights his experience as a hunter. He skipped the entire logic train from “bone found in a grave” to “hey this bone has teeth marks” to “someone chewed on this bone and left it behind in a grave where the body’s gone missing,” and arrived at the logical conclusion: Ghoul, which Sam confirms verbally.

This conclusion utterly perplexes Jack, who still hasn’t moved past the ZOMBIE! hypothesis and was still working under the assumption that he’d already completely understood the case. And again, I’ve already covered this in one of those linked posts above, but real quick, Cas has to explain what a ghoul is, “a monster that feeds on the dead and takes on form of whoever they’ve eaten.” And goes on to explain how to kill them. Jack’s still processing all this, and is unable to just incorporate this knowledge as a new thing in and of itself, but instead attempts to categorize it based on things he’s already familiar with. “Zombie Shapeshifter.” Which Sam can’t argue with, but does the opposite of clarification for everyone in the room who’d already accepted the accurate “ghoul” label. Jack’s need to separate and categorize and label just demonstrates that basic lack of understanding, his rather concrete and for lack of a better word  _childish_  view of the world that we see more clearly demonstrated by his insistence on filing things away as either “all good” or “all bad.”

But he does make a valid point: when hunting a monster that could look like anyone, how do you find it? This has been a HUGE theme this season, masks and monsters who can change their identity (13.05 with the plague masks, and 13.02 with Asmodeus taking on other appearances, 13.03 with a wraith who can influence what his victims perceive, 13.04 with literal shapeshifters– one of whom takes on Dean’s appearance and rips his face off like a mask… and there’s already plenty of meta on those episodes and this particular theme).

That brings us back to Athena the rockabilly mortician, and my first thought is ON NOES I hope she’s not the monster! I like her! And my second thought is OH NOES I hope the monster isn’t about to get her because she can’t hear it through the giant pink headphones… And oh noes there’s a shadowy figure at the end of the hall, and we know it’s not one of the “good guys because they’re all back at the motel still. (Cut to Dean opening a beer and flicking the cap across the room)

(Dean is drinking Kingdom beer, btw… famous for being the Last Supper Beer from 10.18 with the ridiculous crossfade between the label and Cas’s face… this is The Cas Beer)

Dean is sick and tired of fighting things that look like other things. :P Cas suggests Athena may be the ghoul, and Sam gets the logic… a creature that eats the dead would have an all you can eat buffet in a mortuary and nobody would ever notice (hey, like Amy Pond in 7.03, who became a mortician so she wouldn’t have to prey on the living). Dean immediately points out the flaw in the logic, if it was her, why would she need to tear up her own graveyard which drew unwanted attention?

And the ominous music plays over her muted rockabilly as she works on another body, and the shadowy figure looms closer.

Jack finds A Clue with his lil laptop. He’s getting good at this investigation stuff: Tracking the plates on the stolen truck, and scouring through traffic camera feeds until he got a good view of the driver. Jack is really fast at scanning through stuff like this, and it’s like he’s got an eidetic memory for these sorts of details. Dean zooms in on the driver and amazingly enough HE recognizes the guy… “Dave Mather.”

*cut to Athena being slapped on the rear by Dave Mather.*

Jack, Cas, and Sam all say “Who?”

Dean doesn’t clarify, just restates, “Dave Mather.”

*cut to Athena saying, “Dave!” and their interaction makes it clear that they are in a relationship. He tells her basically she was asking for it by being “bent over, all sexy.” She tells him she doesn’t like being slapped on the rear, he tells her she does like it. Sometimes. And she smiles at him.*

Dean begins to clarify, excitedly: Cowboy. Outlaw. One of the Dodge City Gang.

*Athena relents and she and Dave kiss*

Dean gets up, pulling a photo off the wall, and couldn’t possibly make it any clearler, presenting photographic evidence of who Dave Mather was as a church bell rings and the cowboy music starts up again. Dean goes on about his reputation as a gunfighter, mentions he died in 1886, and then gives his nickname, “Mysterious Dave Mather.”

Dean is all aflutter about this, gets up, and says, “I’m gonna get my boots on.” As he leaves the room, he’s  _still_  all excitedly going on about “One of the best gunslingers ever, WHOOO!”

(he was already wearing his regular boots. the only thing about his appearance that changes after this is he puts on his jacket. Lizbob made a Terrible Post about the dilemma this has been causing us, so I’ll save myself some typing and paste this here:  
<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167714147275/elizabethrobertajones-spent-the-entire-weekend>) (posted below as *4)

Back at Athena’s morgue, Dave brings her a letter from a SFX makeup school she applied to, letting her know she was accepted. She is thrilled, because this is a dream of hers, but Dave is just meh, “cool.” He proceeds to try and talk her out of it, because LA is expensive, they’re not “swimming in cash.” She’s even ready to sell her mortuary if she needed to, ready to do what she really wants with her life, but Dave is insistent that they already have a good thing, and that her plans for her future would “mess that up.” She’s upset that he tried to crush her dream that quickly, and desperately tries to change the subject by mentioning the FBI agents who visited earlier.

Athena was so weirded out by Jack’s questions, that that’s what stood out to her about the FBI interview, and so that’s also what she relates to Dave. He instantly knows that those FBI dudes are actually hunters, who are likely on to him.

And suddenly he’s got a motivation to get out of town and start over in a big city, expenses be damned. So he cooks up a plan to save his own ass from hunters while still framing everything as something he’s doing for Athena. What a sleazebag. :P

And Jack’s same naivete that outed them as hunters to Dave finally proves helpful. He remembers seeing Dave’s picture at the mortuary, in a romantic pose with Athena. So TFW head over to talk to her. Sam and Dean go in, leaving Cas and Jack waiting in the back seat. Have a visual. This is an important scene.

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167596638755/out-in-the-open-hunting-rule-36-never-tell-a>

After Dean’s broken, brutal honesty with the sheriff in 13.01, and his continuing sort of oversharing during his “I just don’t care anymore” phase, now that he has Cas back and is feeling that will to live again, he’s back to the complete snark about what they should tell Athena about her boyfriend– who and what he really is, what he snacks on, and why they’re there to kill him…

Sam and Dean let themselves into the morgue looking for her, but for once she’s not wearing her headphones and she’s the one that finds THEM. They tell her they’re looking for her boyfriend, and she asks if it’s about the grave robberies. Dean clarifies that it’s also about a murder. Then clarifies AGAIN that it was a sheriff’s deputy who was murdered the night before. She’s completely honest with them. Dave told her he had to go to the bank.

Cut to the bank, where a helpful security guard holds the door open for a customer who leaves the Stagecoach Credit Union. The guard tells the banker he’s going to lock up for the night, just as Dave barges in with a bandanna and a gun drawn, aimed at the guard.

Just like Cas said earlier at the crime scene, Dave opens with “Howdy partner.”

Only for Dave, it’s not “put on.” He’s such a weird anachronism. This old west outlaw (or a monster wearing his face), robs the  _Stagecoach_ Credit Union, in the Old West Outlaw Milieu, but also listing off all the “modern day bank robber demands.”

You hit the alarm, you die, you give me a dye pack, you die, you try to play hero, you die.

It’s fascinating, reminding us that the old west outlaw is literally a role the ghoul is playing. He’s hung on to Dave Mather’s body so that he can continue to “become” Dave, because it’s a role he enjoys playing and a face he enjoys wearing. He’s choosing to play this particular role despite having probably become thousands of other people he’s eaten since Dave died in the 1880′s. I don’t even want to think about eating bits of 140-years-dead-Dave… >.>

But Dean’s waiting for him outside the bank, with a shotgun already pointed at him. He identifies the ghoul by name, “Dave Mather.” So even DEAN is playing into this role the ghoul has chosen for himself. I mean, Dean does have this interesting habit of killing famous “bad guys.” I mean, he killed Hitler (who happened to be wearing a new body), and now here’s Dave Mather, who isn’t really Dave Mather but a ghoul who stole his famous face.

Dave immediately identifies Dean as “the hunter,” and Dean replies that he must like to play cowboy. But then Sam cocks his gun and Dave notices Dean’s posse (he loves him some posse. I wonder if he ever got that t-shirt?). Dave proves he can count to four, and Sam asks him to come quietly. Dave decides to try and fight his way out and draws his gun.

Sam shoots first, but misses. Lots of shooting ensues. Cas and Jack hide behind a mockup of a stagecoach outside the bank, while Sam and Dean hide behind a car in the lot. Cas advises Jack to stay hidden, but Jack insists he’s got this and runs out before Cas can stop him. Cas runs after him, but inside the bank, the guard is doing one of the things Dave told him not to: he tries to play hero. He tells the banker lady to stay put and goes outside, drawing his weapon. Dave shoots Jack twice, which doesn’t hurt Jack at all. This freaks Dave out, for obvious reasons.

Just as the security guard reaches Dave, Jack launches a glowy-eyed power blast at Dave, sending both him and the guard flying. Dave lands in the parking lot, but the guard wasn’t so lucky… Jack is so distracted and distraught over having accidentally hurt the guard that Dave is able to make his escape.

(here on Cas’s powers to heal/resurrect:   
<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167624981350/do-you-have-any-thoughts-about-why-cas-didnt-have>) (posted below as *5)

I already covered this scene in one of the linked posts at the top, and as this is now approaching 7k words and I’m just past the halfway mark of the episode… I’m gonna try to be more suscinct from here on out >.>

Dean chases after Dave, and has yet another “chase the bad guy, nearly get run over by a moving vehicle, and then lose the bad guy” scene similar to the one in 13.03.

Jack didn’t mean to hurt the guard, and he begs Cas to heal him, but it’s too late. The guard is already dead. Just before Sam pronounces the fact, thunder rumbles, and then we return to the motel room where Jack’s sitting distraught on the couch as even louder thunder rumbles… and the rest of TFW is standing in the bedroom having a Grownups Conversation about Jack…

Cas asks if it’s the first time he’s hurt anyone, and Sam replies no, but this is the first person he’s killed. Dean makes a decision, that Sam and Cas should take Jack back to the bunker for his own protection, since local law enforcement may figure out that Jack was responsible for the guard’s death and come after him. Cas volunteers to stay with Dean to deal with the ghoul, but Dean insists he’ll handle it, because Cas may need to help Jack deal with his powers. Cas relents, but nobody is really thrilled with this circumstance.

Meanwhile back at the morgue, Dave stumbles in with his big bag of cash and a couple of gunshot wounds, and Athena is initially worried for him, until he proudly announces that he robbed a bank for her. She’s not impressed. Honestly, I wouldn’t be either. He makes it seem like he’s doing it all for her, when it’s really all about himself.

“You can go to that school, and I’m gonna come with you.” As if she needed his permission and he’s graciously granted it, along with the promise of his company. And then he insists they leave immediately.

But Athena thinks he’s lost his mind. He goes on to confess to the grave robberies, but that the small-time money he’d made from pawning the things he’d dug up wasn’t cutting it, hence the bank robbery. Athena is shocked to learn he was the grave robber all along. And she ALSO puts together the fact that that means he’s a murderer, too, that he killed the deputy. She’s distraught that he killed someone, and can’t accept Dave’s reasoning that “he had it coming,” just for investigating his grave robberies.

She doesn’t even want him to touch her, and he goes off… how he’s given her everything she ever wanted, that he will always protect her, but they need to leave, now. She struggles to get away from him, but he won’t let her go. Outside the window, headlights pull up, and he knows it’s too late.

But outside, we see it’s not Dean, but Sarge. Dean pulls up next, in a stolen car. Sarge tells him about the bank robbery that turned into an “OK Corral” shootout, and that he’s looking for the shooter. The bank teller recognized Dave’s voice as the man who’d been dating Athena, so Sarge came out to find him after matching the prints from the bank robbery to those found at Carl’s murder scene. And for a ghoul with the ability to change his prints just by snacking on someone else before committing his crimes, that’s just weak, Dave. :P

He got caught because of his fondness for this particular false identity.

Sarge runs through all the logic, Dave’s place is cleared out, he won’t leave town without his girlfriend. He was really clear about all of this. Then he asks Dean why he’s there, and Dean answers “Same thing.” Dean asks where his badge is, and Sarge answers he doesn’t need one, because he’s not there as law enforcement, but as family business. Dean gets it, and jumps in with Sarge with both feet, confirming that Dean’s not taking him alive, either.

Without giving Sarge any of the other details about the supernatural and the fact that Dae is a ghoul, he’s already prepared him for the hunt, knowing he won’t waver on taking the shot. All Dean needs to tell him is, “Aim for the head.”

Both of them have shotguns as they prowl through the graveyard. They hear rustling, and Sarge is perplexed. Dean pushes on. Then we’re right back to the opening scene, where Sarge gets yanked underground. This time, WE GET CLARIFICATION! Or at least, we get to see what happens next.

Unlike at the beginning of the episode that ended with Dean staring into the hole and saying, “Aw, hell,” this time we see him take action. He immediately gets down, grumbling about not wanting to go face-first into a ghoul tunnel, but then he sucks it up and goes, because that’s what he does.

(we get Dean’s Die Hard impression as he struggles through the tunnel, which we’ve already talked about elsewhere)

Then we cut to the Impala, with Sam and Cas trying to counsel Jack. They’ve both been in his place, having hurt someone unintentionally, but neither of them is particularly comforting to Jack. 

SUFFER WITH ME:   
<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167595896815/mittens-i-choked-on-my-juice-because-cas-said> (posted below as *6)

Cas shares some of his understanding, that even if it hurts, he should never stop fighting. Just because he made a mistake doesn’t mean he can’t be better, or do better.

And here’s another clarification, which rings the same bells that Kelly’s “It’s not what you are, it’s what you do” line to Jack. Can he “be better” or can he “do better,” because those are two different things.

Cas then delivers a line nearly identical to Mia the Shapeshifting Therapist: “I believe that, I have to believe that.” Again, a clarification.

Sam tells Jack that they still believe in him, but Jack doesn’t want to hear it. He asks them to stop. Please stop. Again, not a clarification, but a repetition and the emphasis added with the please.

Back to the morgue, where we see what appears to be the door to a crematorium open, but it’s actually the tunnel through the graveyard. Dean opens it from inside, and then loudly falls out onto the floor. He sees Athena tied to a chair with Dave’s bandanna tied around her mouth. He removes the gag, and she asks what’s going on. Dean tells her her boyfriend isn’t exactly human, and she’s like WHAT?!

Dean’s distracted from replying by a groan, and sees Sarge lying on the ground nearby. He runs over to check on him, and sets his rifle down a Sarge’s side. Sarge is hurt, and weirded out that Dave was able to drag him through the ground and toss him around like a rag doll. Dean asks if Sarge has any idea where Dave is, and he answers, “A little bit.” And we hear Dave’s gun cock behind Dean.

Dean slowly stands up and raises his hands, turning around to face Dave. Dave insults Dean’s intelligence for daring to follow after him without even bringing a gun, because Dean appears to be unarmed. Dave taunts him about this, but Dean’s entirely unperturbed, because while he might not be holding the gun, he didn’t arrive unarmed. He just left his gun on the ground… with Sarge…

Athena distracts Dave for a moment, pleading with him not to do this. He insists he’s doing it for “us,” and she replies, “There is no us.”

Dean’s still standing with his hands raised, and whatever silent communication he’s exchanged with Sarge while we (and Dave) weren’t watching them has obviously given him some confidence, and he taunts Dave about her breaking up with him. Dave taunts Dean about how he’s gonna put a bullet between his eyes, then we get the line about how even if Dean had a gun he wouldn’t be fast enough, and Dean replies, “No, but he is.”

Dean takes a little side step, and trusts that Sarge used his time during Dean’s distraction wisely to aim, and he blows Dave’s head off. Happy trails, cowboy.

The whole time, we saw Dean’s uncanny trust in Sarge, from the nonchalant way they just sort of had this understanding about hunting for Dave back in the graveyard, to this incredible display of trust in Sarge’s otherwise entirely unproven ability. Like he just  _knew_  this was going to work out for him.

Maybe his recent conversation with Billie about his importance to her is making him a bit overconfident? Or maybe Dean is just this cool when people point guns at him while he’s unarmed?

In daylight, Sarge asks Dean exactly what happened back there. Dean says, “Sure,” and then proceeds to lay out the absolute barest facts possible. “A guy named Dave killed your deputy. He tried to kill you, and you shot him dead. I was never here.” Sarge replies, “Fair enough.” He might not ever get a realer answer to his question, but he knows better than to press. Dean also pushes one lie after this, that Dave also killed the security guard at the bank. He’s lied to protect Jack, though I don’t know if the human legal system would be prepared to deal with Jack anyway… Something tells me he’d just boop himself out of prison.

Dean arrives back at the bunker, and Jack’s again sitting at the same spot in the library he was before. Only this time he’s sulking with his arms folded instead of eagerly researching cases. Down in the War Room, Sam and Cas sit on opposite sides of the table. Sam stands when Dean comes in, and Dean tells them how the hunt went. When Sam replies, “Good,” Jack questions that… he doesn’t think it’s good at all.

Cas tries to calm Jack down, telling him not to do this to himself when he presses for details about the man he killed. Dean answers him honestly. And honestly so much has been written about this scene already:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167593430430/so-what-did-you-think-of-the-episode-overall-did> (posted below as *7)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167672126250/do-you-know-of-any-instances-in-canon-history> (posted below as *8)

(that second post is about something else entirely, but touches on this final scene where Jack flaps off)

And on that note, I think I’m done. At least I seem to have purged the need to pick at this episode. I feel better, anyway. If anyone actually read all this, I’m sorry. Have a cookie. 

 

[spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [yeehaw](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yeehaw) [narrative structure](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/narrative-structure) [silent storytelling](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/silent-storytelling) [this is a jerry wanek appreciation blog](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-a-jerry-wanek-appreciation-blog) [narrative negative space](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/narrative-negative-space)[using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [need vs want](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/need-vs-want) [okay i give up just still all the major s13 meta tags on here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/okay-i-give-up-just-still-all-the-major-s13-meta-tags-on-here)[spn fashion hour pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-fashion-hour-pffft) [you learned it from the goats](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/you-learned-it-from-the-goats) [supernatural beer signs](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-beer-signs) [where's that gif of the Kingdom logo fade in to cas's face from that episode...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/where%27s-that-gif-of-the-Kingdom-logo-fade-in-to-cas%27s-face-from-that-episode...) [seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/seriously-though-why-doesn%27t-everyone-just-trust-dean%27s-gut-instincts-it%27s-like-he%27s-got-an-uncanny-magical-gift-here...)

#### 78 notes

 

 *1

Nov 18, 2017

79 notes

**Anonymous asked: All of the stuff between Jack and Cas this episode was magic. And when Jack flew off at the end and Cas was yelling his name, I just *sigh*. He's gonna be Worried Dad in the next episode and Dean's going to have to comfort him. I just have so many feels about Cas and Jack!**

I’m not gonna lie, I find it all really uncomfortable. I’ve been sitting on this message for a couple days, and just… not knowing exactly how to reply without squashing your enthusiasm…

The whole “worried dad” thing is just… skeevy to me. I mean, all the huge questions surrounding Jack’s powers are deeply unsettling. His powers  _do things_  and he has zero understanding or control over them.

Not to mention the fact that they way they’ve been setting Jack up all season is pointing to something very much darker. One of his first “humanizing” traits having earned him the Nougat nickname we all love, the fact that he was hungry and found satisfaction in candy, and in nougat specifically, is gone now. So’s the fact that he used to sleep. There was much squee over the scene of him snoozing in the back seat of the Impala like Cas had once upon a time when his mojo was failing him back in s5, and he was nearly human.

We haven’t actually seen Jack eat since 13.02. Even the Intern Fetching Hot Dogs scene– he never ate himself, despite getting food for all of them. And now in 13.06 he tells Cas he barely sleeps. In the language of Supernatural, these are pretty universally Bad Signs.

They were the cues toward the end of s9 that Dean was succumbing to the Mark. Turning down food was one of the “tests” Crowley ran on him to prove to himself that Dean was fully under its control. Again at the end of s10, not eating and not sleeping were the signs that Dean was losing himself to the Mark yet again.

Soulless!Sam didn’t sleep either.

Yes, Jack is half angel, but he’s also half human. Sam has been treating him like a human with access to some sort of magical power pack accessory attached, but that’s not what Jack is. Dean had been treating him like a highly dangerous nuclear warhead of unknown mojo with a human attached, but that’s also not what Jack is.

Jack himself has no idea what he is, which Cas can certainly identify with, since that’s been his personal struggle for years now. He’s got some human, some angel, and it’s all mixed up and he’s been trying to figure himself out as if he were two separate things at once, but he’s not. He’s one thing.

He’s been  _terrified_  of his own power, because he’s understood that his power has Done Things™ that he’s had zero control over, that he didn’t choose to do, and that he can’t even comprehend.

This is so far beyond what Cas can even understand or relate to.

Not to mention that Jack can’t even guarantee that his power isn’t what brought all the Winchesters to care for him. Did his power realize he needed help and protection, and “make them” take him in.

I mean, before he was born, he needed Kelly alive. When she killed herself, his power resurrected her, controlled her,  _changed her_. She truly believed that Jack shouldn’t be born until after she’d been resurrected by his power… his power that acts entirely outside of Jack’s control or conscious knowledge as a self-protective mechanism.

His power– because of his personal need, because of his belief that Cas would keep him safe– without his conscious choice to do so, reached into a realm that is beyond even God’s power and woke Cas up from eternal sleep that nothing is supposed to be able to return from. This is why Sam was kinda >.> about asking Jack if he’d woken Cas. This… was not a small statement.

Jack had NO IDEA he’d done that. And yet he just moves right along, accepting that Cas is back like it’s no big deal, and then goes on into telling everyone about the hunting case he’s found.

He’s learned so much just from watching Sam and Dean over the last couple of weeks, but heck, he’s got so much more to learn. His naivete has almost blown two cases already for them, but he’s also shown a rigidity of thought and understanding that complements his current understanding of morality in general. I’ve been waiting for his need to classify everything as rigidly good or bad to blow up in his face, and 13.06 did that for him.

To back up for a second, he fixated on this being a zombie case, probably because he’d watched a zombie movie or happened to stumble across something about zombies online. He never even heard of a ghoul before, and then had to explain it for himself in terms of two other monsters he COULD understand (zombie shapeshifter!). Interesting because it’s sort of the reverse of what Dean does with his “ghoulpire” and “octovamp” and the like. Dean smashes things together, Jack takes one thing and makes it two…

He knows that Sam and Dean use the EMF meter to look for ghosts, but he uses it in the graveyard because he doesn’t yet understand that it doesn’t work for finding ghouls– or that graveyards might be hotbeds of EMF because of all the ghosts there anyway, making it practically useless even if they were specifically looking for a ghost. Or the questions he asks Athena about weird smells and cold spots– ALSO not relevant in a ghoul case, and which actually blew their cover when Athena related those weird questions  _to the ghoul they were hunting_. I mean… yikes.

It’s this rigidity of thinking combined with his utter inexperience that really worries me.

Yes, he did notice things while wandering around Athena’s morgue that eventually alerted them to the fact that Dave was Athena’s boyfriend, but it was already too late. Dave had been tipped that they were hunters, and it drove him to rob the bank in order to have the funds to flee with Athena… setting up the shootout in the bank’s parking lot.

Jack realized that Dave’s bullets couldn’t hurt him, and he resorted to using his power consciously to stop Dave. He wasn’t expecting the security guard to be in the way of his uncontrolled power blast, nor was he expecting it to  _kill_  the guard.

He’d been trying to do something good, but he did something bad instead, and once again he’s terrified of himself. He’s questioning every “good” thing he’s ever done, scared of every use of his power he hasn’t been aware of, and wondering what other unknown things he may have done that have hurt people…

_Including everything Dean had said about how he’d gotten Cas killed_.

His power did that.

Yes, he also brought Cas back, but that doesn’t change anything. He couldn’t bring the guard back. He has no idea how he resurrected Kelly or tapped Cas awake in the Empty, and all his power couldn’t do anything to fix what he’d done with intent, yet had drastic consequences he’d never foreseen.

So yeah, I’m worried for Jack. He’s worried for himself. And he doesn’t trust anything right now. He hasn’t had the time to grow into his power, to understand it, despite feeling a huge pressure to do so.

And Cas? This is so far beyond anything Cas can even understand. He’s facing almost an entirely opposite problem from what Jack is. Cas understands his powers completely, he’s lived with them for billions of years and knows his limits and boundaries. He can understand some of Jack’s current moral dilemma, because he has been living with guilt resulting from some terrible choices he’s made in the past, but he can’t really understand Jack’s fear of his own powers.

In that respect, I think Sam and Dean understand him a bit better– Sam via his demon blood powers that he’d once feared, and Dean with the MoC/demon powers that he’d also feared. But they also can’t identify with or understand how Jack’s power he’s afraid of is also  _part of himself_. It’s not something he can “cure” or go through demon blood detox on. It’s part of who he  _is_  that he’s convinced makes him evil, simply because he can’t control it.

That’s why the whole “floaty pencil” thing had the Kill Bill Sirens going off in my head. In immediate contrast to the whole conversation about whether it was his powers that had unconsciously crossed over into a realm beyond God’s reach just to get something he wanted, to then turn around and seem him so proud to make a pencil levitate like a gleeful child showing off a trick they learned… it’s super unsettling to me.

Yes, I think Cas  _does_  care for Jack, just like Sam and Dean clearly do, even if the whole reason they care for him didn’t start out as an actual choice (because that’s how Jack’s power works, that’s how we’ve seen it clarified in 13.06 regarding his waking of Cas in the Empty). And the fact we’re also getting all the unsettling little tells that a character is becoming “less human,” well… let’s say I don’t really feel comfortable framing any of this with language that involves the word “Dad.”

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [spn 13.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.02) [spn 13.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.04) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [the special agony of brainwashing](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-special-agony-of-brainwashing) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

*2

CLARIFICATION:

Nov 18, 2017

104 notes

this is not the meta about clarification that I’ve been meaning to compile for the last two days, but haven’t scraped up the brainpower to actually write yet. No, this is an actual clarification. Because I am a fool. :P

In [this post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167607370265/not-that-we-need-it-but-i-think-its-relevant-to), I said some stuff and things about Dean’s cowboy knowledge, their chosen aliases, and the Tombstone references, but I can’t believe I missed this huge obvious WTF moment… because it’s huge…

Take Dean’s line here:

**Dean:**  Pretty cool right? Dude, check it, check it out, check it out. Clay Allison, gun fighter extraordinaire, right. And, ah, Curly Bill Brocius, which no, no, no. Little fun fact here, was killed by Wyatt Earp himself. Not kidding. Johnny Ringo, Billy the Kid… Doc Holiday! Hey-oh!

But I have since learned a thing about the movie Tombstone, which Dean referred to explicitly in the “I’m your huckleberry” scene with Cas, and even chose all their aliases for this hunt as the actors who starred in that movie. He advised Cas to pretend they were in the movie while talking to the local cops.

~~But in the movie, it wasn’t Wyatt Earp (incidentally the character Dean based his alias of Kurt Russel on) who killed Curly Bill, _it was Doc Holliday_.~~

~~And I only think it’s relevant to point out and correct here because Doc Holliday delivered the “I’m your huckleberry” line _to Curly Bill_  right before shooting him. Beating him in the duel that was SUPPOSED to have been between Curly Bill and Wyatt.~~

I have since been informed that the above scratched out bit is incorrect, that Doc delivered the line to Johnny Ringo,  _also_  identified by Dean in his little Cowboy History Gleefest, but that Wyatt was  _supposed_  to be the one dueling Ringo but because of Doc’s manipulation of the entire scenario, he prevented Wyatt from showing up on time (knowing that Ringo was a better gunfighter and would likely win against Wyatt), so that Doc could stand in for him (Doc was dying of tuberculosis anyway, and he knew he was the better gunfighter as well… and yeah, he won the duel).

But in real life, [it really WAS Wyatt Earp who shot and killed Curly Bill](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FWilliam_Brocius&t=NTY3ZDQ4MGU4OTQ3MmUwZjU2MDdhMjQ0M2RlNTgwNDc1M2Q3MzYxNix3QzR6TjNjSg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F167631016525%2Fclarification&m=1). (Curly Bill had assassinated Wyatt’s brother Morgan, played by Bill Paxton in the movie, and the alias given to Jack on this hunt, just as an additional fun fact. So it really was “family business” for the Earps just like the hunt for Dave the Ghoul was “family business” for Sarge.)

The entire scenario in the movie was fictional. Dean’s knowledge of the REALITY of these historical people isn’t just based on movies. Remember how he got mocked for wearing his “blanket” in 6.18? Yeah, I think he’s spent some time in the interim reading up on the reality of the old west. He doesn’t just know the movie versions of events and circumstances.

I.e., Dean’s not confusing reality with porn here. :P

The way Davy Perez balanced out the fictional aspects of Tombstone by giving TFW 2.0 the aliases of the ACTORS portraying these characters and mirroring their “roles” to the events of the film, versus the actual “meat” of the case (pffft meat, because it was a ghoul…) and mirroring their reality to… reality… I am blown away yet again. 

 

[spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [davy perez appreciation tag](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/davy-perez-appreciation-tag) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [yeehaw](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yeehaw) [spn 6.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.18)[dean is a genius and if you disagree you can fight me](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-is-a-genius-and-if-you-disagree-you-can-fight-me) [the more i think about this episode and davy's writing in general the more i am an impress with him](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-more-i-think-about-this-episode-and-davy%27s-writing-in-general-the-more-i-am-an-impress-with-him)

 

 

*3

# Athena or Eileen or Jack

Nov 17, 2017

99 notes

I’ve seen several other posts about Athena as an Eileen mirror (starting from the fact she couldn’t hear Sam and Jack because of her headphones). But Jack’s actions sort of boost the 12.17 parallels through the roof:

Sam introduced Jack, and Athena made a comment about Jack being too young to be an FBI agent as Jack sort of wandered off like a lost kid. Sam handwaved it with, “He’s in training. He was top of his class.”

And if that doesn’t just remind me of Renny “Top of my class at Kendricks” Rawlings…

But at that point, it’s JACK that takes over Eileen’s position from 12.17. He pulled the exact same sort of accidental “I was aiming for the bad guy and oopsie killed an innocent bystander, AKA top of his class Renny.”

And this for Jack was as good as shooting himself… or the Nougaty human part of himself. Just like Eileen shooting Renny with the Colt while she was aiming for Dagon, because Dagon set the situation up exactly that way (essentially  “framed” Eileen to kill Renny). It truly wasn’t Eileen’s fault. Just like the guard’s death truly wasn’t Jack’s fault. But just like with Eileen, that doesn’t change the way they feel about it.

Dave set the guard up, telling him not to try and be a hero, or he’d end up dead. And that’s exactly what the guard was doing– trying to be a hero, sneaking up on Dave just as Jack unleashed his power in Dave’s direction. The guard shouldn’t have been there, just like Renny shouldn’t have been standing opposite to where all the people firing guns were standing… it was just a terrible coincidence, but for Jack it was a sort of confirmation of however good his intentions, his power is still  _dangerous_  to people.

So he runs.

One final note on Athena… Dave just wanted to “protect” her and take care of her, and he wanted her to just sit there and let him do so. He claimed everything he was doing (from killing Deputy Carl to robbing the bank) was  _for us._  And Athena had already given up on him, and I wanted to high five her when she yelled “There is no us.”

Poor Athena got splattered with Dave. I hope she goes on to have a long and successful career in SFX makeup

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [spn 12.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.17) [come on eileen](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/come-on-eileen) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester) [athena lopez](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/athena-lopez) [i really hope we get to see her again someday because she was awesome](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-really-hope-we-get-to-see-her-again-someday-because-she-was-awesome)

 

 

*4

Nov 20, 2017

142 notes

[elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/167714073998/spent-the-entire-weekend-wondering-why-dean-did):

> Spent the entire weekend wondering why Dean did not actually put his cowboy boots back on when he said he was gonna get his boots in a scene where he was already wearing his regular boots, and then for the rest of the episode… continued wearing his regular boots.
> 
> I am… immensely horrified at the only available answer.
> 
> * * *
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> yikes  
> I  scrolled as far as [@almaasi](https://tmblr.co/mqjEKpbBg3hdjDRUavVmg2Q)’s notes: <http://almaasi.tumblr.com/post/167577261440/reaction-post-typed-while-watching-spn-13x06>  
> and they said, when Dean was like “I’ll go get my boots!” (which has been infuriating me since the episode) “did he just adjust his dick in his pants and run off to get his boots”  
> and it’s been driving me mad because Dean did not in fact put his boots back on
> 
> [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg)  
> I KNOW
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> apparently the left over evidence is that he really was *that* excited by the case :P
> 
> mittensmorgul  
> He was already wearing his regular boots
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> yeah  
> he made no change whatsoever to his footwear  
> but excused himself to the bedroom >.>
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> yeah, I’m watching it on my computer and he does briefly shove his hand in his pocket and then out again
> 
> just as a mannerism  
> unless  
> …
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> gah do we really have no other choice but to assume he had to jerk off mid-case? :P
> 
> mittensmorgul  
> he didn’t even change his clothes, just put on his jacket?
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> it’s gross, Dean
> 
> mittensmorgul  
> Either that or he had to excuse himself to spend a moment thinking Unsexy Thoughts to calm himself down
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> yeah  
> sit on the bed and try not to look at the Butt  
> look around and see the other Butt I assume the other cowboy had  
> …  
> give up and go sit in the closet and take deep breaths :P
> 
> mittensmorgul  
> HAHAHAH  
> and try not to get excited about stirrup hangers
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> NOWHERE IS SAFE  
> I’m making a post but it is not going to be a good post :P

Reblogged from [elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/167714073998/spent-the-entire-weekend-wondering-why-dean-did)

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [spn crack](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-crack) [dean winchester is bilingual](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-winchester-is-bilingual) [what are you talking about this is a great post! :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/what-are-you-talking-about-this-is-a-great-post%21-%3AP)

 

 

 

 

*5

Nov 18, 2017

75 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you have any thoughts about why Cas didn’t have the power to heal the security guard?**

He hasn’t been “fully powered” for a very long time. He can’t resurrect the dead anymore (I believe the last person he resurrected from “all the way dead” was Bobby in 5.22, but he also had a “special dispensation” having just been resurrected himself by Chuck at that point, and Bobby had only been dead for a few minutes.)

Since he had his original grace stolen in 8.23, and Metatron “used up” most of it in the angel fall spell, he’s been “weaker.” When he had the stolen grace during s9 and s10, he was barely able to even heal himself (Hannah had to heal him at one point in 10.02 (hello, Dabb).

Metatron told Cas and Hannah in 10.02:  “But there is some of your mojo left. Not a lot… But enough.“ Enough to keep him alive, enough to keep him from burning out with stolen grace, but not a lot. We’ve seen, since he got his own grace back in 10.18, that he’s definitely weaker power-wise than he was before.

I mean, he was weak enough, and bound into his human body enough, to give consent to be possessed by Lucifer. Pretty much every angel he’s encountered since late s10 has commented on the fact that he is weak, that he’s not actually an angel anymore. Even Amara commented on it, after eating Ambriel’s grace:

**Amara** : She’s right you know, you are expendable and weak. And why God took a special interest in you, I’ll never understand. My brother always did have horrible taste in men.  
 **Castiel** : Just do it.  
 **Amara** : Blue eyes, you’re not even worth the effort… and no offence, but you look a bit used up. Plus, I have a job for you.

He wasn’t even worth eating, so she used him as a post-it note in 11.10, written by… SURPRISE! Andrew Dabb.

And already in 11.10 we had him failing to heal Dean of “smiting sickness,” yet still “diagnosing” him with all sorts of prodding. *holds up finger and offers to take his temperature*

He is weak, “a bit used up.” He was able to heal Sam after the BMoL torture, but Sam wasn’t all the way dead and in need of resurrection. One episode earlier, in 12.01, he basically did the “forehead tap triage” on Mary after the car crash, specifically to DIAGNOSE her. He told Dean that she was unconscious but that there was “no serious damage,” but he didn’t heal her despite the fact that they were in an unknown and potentially antagonistic situation. He was working on it, though, when they were attacked, and Mary did come around on her own a minute later.

Recall how weak he was during 12.10 from healing Ishim, and how long it took him to heal himself from his own wounds… I believe there was a major debate about Cas’s weakened state after that episode, too. People were calling bullshit back then, and just like now I rolled my eyes, because  _he has been weakened since 8.23. Nothing has changed._

I suppose people just wanted to assume that Chuck would’ve “healed” his grace, but Cas never asked him to… or that the Empty would’ve resurrected him with some sort of boost in power level, but all it did was make sure he wasn’t naked when he bounced down to that bramble patch. 

Cas literally showed up with a new outfit– i.e. the surface-layer of him is new– but everything else? Same old same old.

Even when he healed Dean in 12.19 and 12.23, they made A Big Deal out of showing us that his grace glowed golden over Dean’s face, and NOT Cas’s own blueish glow, because he was still “tapped in” to JACK’s power at that point.

If the guard in 13.06 has just bumped his head and knocked himself out, I think Cas would’ve been able to heal him, but he was already dead. That was confirmed by Sam a moment later. I do think he was performing the same sort of “forehead tap triage” that he did on Mary in 12.01, diagnosing the problem rather than attempting a healing. Because he can’t heal the dead, and he hasn’t been able to for a very long time.

This is not a new or shocking development here.

ETA, because this is IMPORTANT: In 10.01 and 10.02, Cas was so weakened HE WAS SLEEPING. He required SLEEP the weaker his grace became. Which is why Jack’s statement in 13.06 that he doesn’t sleep much is so worrying… it means his own “humanity” is losing out to his mojo… Dabb has used this exact metaphor for just how “human” Cas was becoming (and even back during s5 it was used to show just how weak Cas’s mojo was, in a shot nearly identical to Jack sleeping in the Impala in 13.02). So the fact that Jack isn’t really sleeping anymore is A Concern. Interestingly, Cas also described what he’d been doing in the empty as “sleeping,” until Jack’s call woke him up, and now Cas is back to not sleeping at all because he’s alive again. Okay, as you were.

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [castiel and his fading grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-and-his-fading-grace) [heck that's a tag i haven't used much since s10 but there you go](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heck-that%27s-a-tag-i-haven%27t-used-much-since-s10-but-there-you-go) [on the nature of angel grace](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/on-the-nature-of-angel-grace) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [spn 5.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.22)[spn 10.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.02) [spn 11.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.10) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [spn 12.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.02) [spn 10.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.18) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

*6

Nov 17, 2017

462 notes

**Anonymous asked: Mittens, I choked on my juice because Cas said that he has murdered people he loves before so he understands Jack's plight. I mean obviously it could have been his angel family but are we gonna forget that he literally had to murder Dean a thousand times as practice for Naomi's evil plan. Is this heaven? Are you Chuck?**

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO oh my god oh my god oh my god

He killed thousands of Deans. They may not have been real, but oh my god it felt real to him…

Okay… I need to go cry for like an hour now…

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [holy fuck anon i am ruined now thanks](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/holy-fuck-anon-i-am-ruined-now-thanks) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

*7

Nov 17, 2017

73 notes

**Anonymous asked: So what did you think of the episode overall? Did it live up to the hype?**

OH MY GOD.

COWBOY. HATS.

Seriously that’s all they needed to do to live up to the hype. Hugs and cowboy hats…

This was just so much more. I mean… Jack’s final scene sort of summed up ALL of their issues:

**Sam** : Jack, look, this life, what we do, it’s not easy. We’ve all done things we regret –  
 **Jack** : Don’t. You’re afraid of me.  
 **Castiel** : Jack, no.  
 **Jack** : No, maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m just another monster.  
 **Dean** : No, you’re not. I thought you were. I did. But, like Sam said, we’ve all done bad. We all have blood on our hands. So, if you’re a monster. We’re all monsters.  
 **Jack** : But you don’t… Every time I try and do something good, people get hurt. I thought I was getting better. I’m not. I don’t know what I am. But I know I can’t make the world a better place, not like this. I can’t even do one good thing. And I know if I stay I will hurt you, all of you. And I can’t. You’re all I have. I have to go.

He tries to do good, but people get hurt.

He thought he was getting “better” but he doesn’t think so anymore.

He doubts everything, all the faith Kelly and Cas showed in him (because his power convinced them to believe in him), but this same power that satisfies Jack’s “needs” like protection and comfort, that can reach through to the empty to bring back what he needs to feel safe and secure, is also something entirely out of his control… and even doing “good” things has consequences because he CAN’T control it… Believing he can be “good” because he HAS TO believe it… it’s just not enough.

He feels completely out of control, like his very presence is poison… (sound familiar?)

He doesn’t know what he is. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. So he runs.

He’s so a Winchester. I mean. GAH.

Heck, this episode so far exceeded the hype it’s ridiculous, and I haven’t even gone through to point out all the things. I’m kinda-sorta waiting on Lizbob’s recap post to take care of most of that for me. (because I’m currently yelling stuff at her while she’s watching)

GAH. So good.

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester) [aka the mirror for all of tfw](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/aka-the-mirror-for-all-of-tfw) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

*8

Nov 19, 2017

42 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you know of any instances in canon history where Dean's intuition has turned out to be wrong in a major way? Because it seems like we're going to start to see some answers to the "he was brainwashed" question since Jack flapped off and Dean still doesn't trust him.**

Hrrrrm. This is a really difficult question, because like the Winchester Hunting Mindset, it’s not this black and white.

Like obviously of course he has and hasn’t, but extenuating circumstances. Context matters. Shades of grey, etc. etc.

Even all during s6 he fought against what his intuition was telling him about Cas, because he so wanted to believe in Cas. I mean, that’s a huge part of why he couldn’t forgive himself, or get over what Cas had done even by 7.17. He blamed himself for not pushing harder for answers, or maybe even for taking that whole year off with Lisa and trying to play normal

But aside from emotional overriding of what he’s got that bad feeling about, I can’t think of a single instance of his intuition being flat-out wrong.

Even in smaller ways, he’s typically right about the case stuff and Sam’s the doubter, but you specifically asked for if he’s been wrong in “a major way,” so I’m going to try and focus on The Big Issues. But again, the only instance I can think of right off the top of my head where he was stubbornly and blatantly wrong about a case was in 12.04– when he was absolutely convinced it was the social services lady who was a witch. Again, waves hello at Davy Perez, for absolutely nailing Dean’s immediate personal trauma and underscoring so many of his personal issues involving Mary’s fresh abandonment, his lifetime of likely run-ins with Family Services and well-meaning social workers, his parentification of Sam, his problematic relationship with John and the responsibility to hide the truth about their lives and protect Sam at all costs… which played right into the case they were working and colored his personal reactions. But again, extenuating circumstances…

Because of his personal issues with Mary and abandonment and the fact the social worker was openly admittedly a witch. Dean also got a very different impression of the family than Sam did (literally, he only had half the information to make his judgment on). He saw the father and son, the “happy families” side of the story where everything was presented to be done by their own choice, for positive family-bonding reasons in the wake of a personal tragedy. Meanwhile, Sam was in the house getting the skeevy third-person retelling of a first-person story by the mother, making it clear to  _us_ , who saw  _both_ sides of the story, that something was Definitely Fishy in that house. Meanwhile, all Dean could see after that encounter was that Sam had a bizarrely antagonistic reaction to a conversation he could only assume was nearly identical to the one he’d had outside.

This stark division, the reminder that they’d both had an entirely different experience in their respective interviews and thus come away with entirely different theories about the case, is highlighted as soon as they leave. Rather than sharing the reasons for their vastly different impressions and trying to figure out WHY they were given two entirely different impressions of this family, they each stubbornly stick to their guns. That was the entire POINT of this episode, on a meta level. And this lack of communication and understanding of the other’s entirely different experience and viewpoint and insight, Sam’s entirely unprepared for the entire family to be “in on the secret” and Dean’s bowled over to discover the social worker was nothing like she’d appeared to be on the surface.

And as soon as he saw the other side of the story, he instantly figured it out

So that’s the one glaring exception to Dean’s instinct, and it essentially works as an “exception that proves the rule,” because of the meta nature of the  _reasons_  he was “wrong” about the social worker.

That brings me to Dean’s role in the overarching narrative of the entire series. He’s the emotional POV for the audience. We’re supposed to ride along with him and even when he’s wrong he’s right. I know this bothers some people, and for some this is a major reason that they just don’t like Dean as a character. But most of the time, he’s the barometer for how the audience is supposed to react and feel and interpret the entire narrative.

We know Dean lies professionally, and is therefore an unreliable narrator, but we’re also given to understand that we’re still supposed to be “on his side” because he’s our emotional POV.

Whether he’s 100% right about Jack puppeting Cas or not doesn’t matter to me, so much as Dean’s reading of it being presented as the correct reading. Whether Jack meant to or not or whatever… (and we have ample evidence that most of what happens with his power is not something he does consciously, but that doesn’t mean he’s not subconsciously doing this stuff anyway), Dean’s read was the presented “main” reading and the events seemed to match it.

But I would argue Dean’s less right than 100%, but not more than 50% wrong. (the 50% being powers vs Jack himself doing it, i.e. the bit he’s partly “wrong” about is his assumption of any sort of  _intent_ on Jack’s behalf) and there will be a REASON he is wrong if he is which would necessarily justify his reading.

The fact that DEAN believed in the sock-puppeting, and the fact that JACK believes that it was a possibility, is what’s led directly to Jack’s current dilemma

Now that Cas is back, and he and Dean can finally (as he said in 12.23) “work through our crap,” theoretically he’ll be able to talk with Cas about all of that and try to understand Cas’s motives between 12.19 and 12.23. Unfortunately, Cas is also not objectively placed to talk about it, since it happened TO him and his emotional attachment to Jack /now/ is again a separate thing.

I fully believe he would have formed those same bonds with Kelly and unborn Jack in BETTER circumstances. Even if he’d gone back to the bunker with Sam and Dean as he’d already consented to do before the events at the sandbox. Arguably, it would’ve been a much safer and secure place for Jack to have been born, and for Dean and Sam to have come to understand the larger circumstances at play here.

As it is, Jack or his powers just made it happen for sure. Because of Dean’s stated concern that Cas wasn’t under his own control there, it renders anything Cas would have to say about it moot, because we can’t trust his objectivity. Because of Dean’s stated pov opinion on it.

Cas’s innate goodness and kindness vs his issues with protecting people/being a guardian angel/wanting a win all would lead him to care for Jack, and to feel responsible for caring for Jack, even if Jack’s powers hadn’t become a mitigating factor. I mean that’s why Kelly “picked him” to be Jack’s guardian in the first place. She (or Jack’s power) could plainly see Cas’s “goodness” in direct contrast to Dagon’s “badness.” He was even wavering about his orders to kill Kelly and Jack a few times IN 12x19, but he got pushed over the edge hard. This was not a gentle nudge or a moment of genuine character realization.

In the span of one glowy-golden-eyed sock puppeting (and that part is NOT up for debate, Jack’s power literally took Cas’s hand and used him to destroy Dagon), he went from “Jack must die and go to heaven before he’s born” to “Jack must be born with all his power at all costs” with no logic in between. We didn’t see his process on screen, and "he’s powerful enough to make me zap a knight of hell" is not good enough reasoning.

This was arguably the first instance of Jack’s power trying to do something good (killing Dagon) while having drastically unanticipated consequences (Joshua’s death, Dean being injured, the Colt being destroyed, and Cas abandoning his stated mission to take Kelly to Heaven so that Jack could be born with all his power). His power had already resurrected Kelly and thereby saved Jack, and that had caused cosmic alarm bells to ring in Heaven, providing the homing beacon Kelvin used to locate Kelly in the first place.

If anything it should be more concerning that he has that much power before he’s ever born. That firmly demonstrated his self-defensive instinct that we’ve seen trigger his power repeatedly since he’s been born.

After his power ~does the thing~ he doesn’t even seem to understand that he’d done anything. Like waking Cas up in the empty. Or the fact that his power resurrected Kelly when she’d killed herself, and yet he has no concept that he probably could’ve resurrected the guard he’d accidentally killed in 13.06 in the same way. Jack still is in a stage where he has to WANT to do things and I think understanding the guard is dead was too final to realize he COULD bring him back.

He seems to just ~do stuff~ with his power, not realizing it, and then later once he realizes he CAN, he attempts to do it deliberately– like the whole “throw people around” thing he seems to have perfected so he can do it without killing the rest of TFW at the end of the episode. I mean, the previous time he’d pulled that trick led to the circumstances he was terrified would happen ~without him intending harm~ but being unable to stop it from happening anyway. And yet he still did the Force Throw thing.

Then again, his INTENT when he was throwing that power at Dave the Ghoul was to kill/maim/injure… but he clearly has a lower setting on it and wasn’t afraid to use it on Sam, Dean, and Cas before flapping off, immediately after stating his reasoning for leaving being his desire NOT to hurt them…

He’s so highly conflicted about his OWN relationship with his powers that HE HIMSELF thinks of them as a tool and not inherently a part of himself. Right now his powers are literally acting like the man behind the curtain, and everything Dean’s witnessed with his own eyes has confirmed his initial impression that Jack’s powers are Not Trustworthy.

Over the course of the first six episodes of the season, Dean’s gotten to know Jack //the human person// outside of his powers, and seen what he was struggling with, his self-loathing and self-doubt and fear and confusion, and knowing that Jack’s powers may have set up the circumstances that led to Cas dying but  _also_  led directly to Cas coming  _back_ … well, that proved Jack’s  _intent_  was good, but still doesn’t clear up the whole “my power does what it wants and damn the consequences” issue that brought them to this point in the first place.

It’s rather a moot point if it ever really had been true or not before 13.04, but Dean’s BELIEF that it was true influenced Jack’s belief about whether or not it was true, which led directly to Jack “calling out” for Cas in the Empty… sort of proving the mechanism by which his power acts without his conscious control, and extends a TERRIFYING amount of influence into realms were even God has no power to act. And he does it all without it even registering to him. So in that respect, yeah, Dean’s 100% right.

He’s right because that’s the function of his POV within the narrative itself. And again, I know that has the potential to piss people off, and it’s kind of a hard fact to swallow sometimes, but unless the narrative  _explicitly_  proves Dean’s intuition wrong, we’re supposed to trust Dean’s assertions. And so far I’ve seen  _nothing_  to contradict this one.

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous) [jack nougat winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jack-nougat-winchester) [seriously though why doesn't everyone just trust dean's gut instincts it's like he's got an uncanny magical gift here...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/seriously-though-why-doesn%27t-everyone-just-trust-dean%27s-gut-instincts-it%27s-like-he%27s-got-an-uncanny-magical-gift-here...) [the special agony of brainwashing](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-special-agony-of-brainwashing) [feeling a wee bit rightfully terrified of the Incredible Nougat Power](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/feeling-a-wee-bit-rightfully-terrified-of-the-Incredible-Nougat-Power) [dean is the center of the universe](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-is-the-center-of-the-universe)


	174. Chapter 174

[Nov 21, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167742447795/was-sam-jealous-when-he-said-fair-enough-and)

132 notes

**Anonymous asked: Was Sam jealous when he said "fair enough" and made that face, or was he just perplexed? I get the sense it's the latter but i'm not sure. I just get the feeling he was utterly lost on how to help Dean and then Cas comes back and Sam's like??? "REALLY dude??" Also i think he might be annoyed that Dean's so happy even though Mary is still gone. Like Sam doesn't think he feels bad enough.**

I think jealousy was a part of it… but in a very specific way. Sam’s just realizing that Dean effectively got his own win, that the thing Sam’s been struggling with– everything about losing Mary and his desperate hope that there may be a way to save her– wasn’t what Dean had been grieving  _at all_.

I have another anon that I’d like to lump into this post, because I think the two of you together have this covered:

> do you have any thoughts on why dean says “*I* needed a big win” and then immediately afterward says “*we* got cas back”? the whole I vs we seems important to me, and really talks about dean’s mindset. and I’m sorry if you’ve already addressed this; you have so many awesome meta posts I sometimes overlook them 😅

(first off, second anon, thanks!)

And this is it… to Dean, HE was the one struggling and buried in hopeless grief while Sam had been the one pulling at him to be okay again, to find the purpose in hunting, find hope in the possibility of finding Mary again, to see Jack as someone who might HELP with finding Mary and because of that hope maybe see Jack in a more positive and encouraging light…

Because Sam hadn’t lost all his hope. He wasn’t desperate for a win in the same way Dean was. DEAN needed the win. The *I* there was absolutely accurate.

But Sam loves Cas too (yes, yes. in a different way than Dean does, but he still thinks of Cas as a brother and as family and as part of Team Free Will). Getting Cas back *IS* a win for both of them. It’s not as if Sam isn’t happy to have Cas back, too, you know? It’s just  _entirely different by several orders of magnitude for Dean_.

And to go back to the first anon, yeah. I think Sam is definitely struggling to understand Dean’s attitude about Mary’s loss through the portal. In so many ways, it’s similar to Dean disappearing to Purgatory for a year, which Sam continues to express guilt over for not looking for Dean and running away instead. It was something that caused a HUGE rift between them, and fueled a lot of the ramping up of the codependency in s8 to where Sam was ready (even EAGER) to sacrifice himself to close the gates of Hell, just to prove to Dean how sorry he was… (I mean there was more to it than this, but he’s repeatedly stated that not looking for Dean in Purgatory remains one of his biggest personal failures, and it’s all wrapped up in the toxic codependency to the point where picking it all apart seems to be something they desperately need to address, and are quite possibly going to do that.. [I reblogged this post earlier today](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167737760635/in-which-i-think-we-can-all-agree-that-dean-maybe), and YES.)

Plus there’s at least a small element of “I tried to fix you and help you and cheer you up and I tried EVERYTHING and it was killing me, and now all Cas has to do is *show up* and suddenly you’re happier than I’ve seen you in years, and playing cowboys with an angel like everything’s suddenly right in the world?” wrapped up in there too… 

  

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [sam sympathizes and dean empathizes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-sympathizes-and-dean-empathizes) [winchester family dynamics](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/winchester-family-dynamics) [breaking the codependency](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/breaking-the-codependency) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	175. Chapter 175

 

 

[Nov 22, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167768534000/so-i-had-a-tombstone-rewatch-and-not-sure-if)

32 notes

**Anonymous asked: So I had a Tombstone rewatch and not sure if anyone pointed it out yet but I noticed that Dean sounded like he's about to cry when he's about to say Cas in the "It's good to see you back, Cas" line. (also it sounded like a whisper or smth and now I can only imagine hearing that sound whenever Dean mentions of Cas' name in a fanfic)**

Yeah, I went looking for one of the posts I flailed over this scene about, [found this one](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167575159980/k-vichan-angvlicmish-id-hate-to-be), and then completely lost myself in unrelated posts… oopsie…

But I picked that one to attach, not because I pointed out how Dean’s voice wavered there, but because it reminded me so much of the tone and sentiment of “Don’t ever change” from 5.04.

Like, eight years ago, Dean asked him to never change, and while he’s obviously changed a lot, he’s still Dean’s Cas, you know? That’s how much weight Dean’s emotions were carrying there. That’s how far this has come. It’s too much. I need to go lie down for a bit.

 

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [someone please throw awards at this man thanks](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/someone-please-throw-awards-at-this-man-thanks) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	176. Chapter 176

[Nov 24, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167840828735/something-interesting-i-noticed-during-the)

137 notes

**Anonymous asked: Something interesting I noticed during the episode. In the scene from the sneak peek, Dean says "Let's go!" to Cas when he talks about meeting the angels. He later clarifies that he means just him and Cas. Then, a little bit later, we have Dean telling Sam "Let's go", and then pointing at Ketch and saying "Not you." (Or something to that effect). Thoughts on this parallel?**

I like the way you think, friendo. This is some EXCELLENT braining, and I support your analysis of this clear and obvious parallel.

Like, Sam hadn’t been under the assumption that he’d been joining Dean and Cas if Dean had somehow talked Cas around to joining him for his meeting.

And HECK IF THAT ISN’T ALSO ANOTHER CALLBACK TO 12.10!

To set this scene up, Sam and Dean have just been talking about their concerns over the fact that Cas had just killed Billie the reaper, and that “Cosmic Consequences” were going to befall them because of it.

**SAM** : Got a lead on Kelly?  
 **CAS** : No. This is personal.  
 **DEAN** : Meaning what?  
 **CAS** : Another angel. An old friend. He called out for help.  
 **DEAN** : Oh. Good old reliable angel radio.  
 **CAS** : He was begging for help and then he just stopped. I need to know if he’s still alive.  
 **SAM** : Yeah, all right. Well… we’ll come with you.  
 **CAS** : Both of you?  
CAS LOOKS AT DEAN.  
 **DEAN** : Sure. Yeah, we could help. Gotta make sure you don’t do anything else stupid.

It’s like we had TWO SEPARATE callbacks to this exact situation from 12.10 here, but turned to see it from a different angle.

GOOD WORK, ANON! :D

[spn 13.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.07) [spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	177. Chapter 177

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another brief interlude

#  [Let me get this straight…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167948525070/let-me-get-this-straight)

[Nov 27, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167948525070/let-me-get-this-straight)

79 notes

Okay, so with the Black Spur bar being associated with Crowley and Dean having done extraordinary things to triplets, where Crowley and Dean photographed themselves embracing while wearing cowboy hats, which Crowley longingly reminisced over after their  ~~b~~ romance fell apart..

And now we have the Black Spur Bar again, but as a place of mourning for Dean, followed up with the absolute GLEE of Dean getting to do the whole cowboy-hatted partnership with Cas in 13.06…

I mean I don’t know where I’m going with this, but this thought keeps hitting me between the eyes like an anvil and I think I need to go lie down for a while and stare at the ceiling…

 

[spn 10.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.01) [spn 10.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.03) [spn 13.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.02) [spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [worst ship on the show](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/worst-ship-on-the-show) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [yeehaw](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yeehaw) [GAH. COWBOY HATS](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/GAH.-COWBOY-HATS) [every time this sequence of thoughts crosses my mind i'm rendered incoherent for at least five minutes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/every-time-this-sequence-of-thoughts-crosses-my-mind-i%27m-rendered-incoherent-for-at-least-five-minutes)

 

 

 

#  [UPDATE:](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167951061065/update)

[Nov 27, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167951061065/update)

93 notes

My gishwhes registration package arrived today, just in time. I’ve been pressing the Panic Button repeatedly, rage-baked two loaves of banana bread, and fully intend to rage-eat said banana bread while continuing to stare at these two images:

  


*hits the panic button again*

misha: hey, easy there, easy. everything’s gonna be fine. everything’s okay. you have got this. you are at the top of your game

me: *rage-eats faster*

[my life as a sad sad fangirl](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/my-life-as-a-sad-sad-fangirl) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [worst ship on the show](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/worst-ship-on-the-show) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [this is it folks this is the end of the line everything's on fire and i'm transcending the veil](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-it-folks-this-is-the-end-of-the-line-everything%27s-on-fire-and-i%27m-transcending-the-veil) [yeehaw](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/yeehaw) [spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [spn 10.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.02) [GAH. COWBOY HATS](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/GAH.-COWBOY-HATS) [*pushes the panic button again*](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/%2Apushes-the-panic-button-again%2A)

 

 

[Nov 30, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/168045866885/so-ive-been-watching-crisis-on-earth-x-it-was)

18 notes

**Anonymous asked: So I've been watching Crisis on Earth X (It was all kinds of bad, spare yourself) but they had leonard snart call his gay lover "buddy" completely unironically. I know we've had "the death of 'buddy'" discussion about Dean, but it made me think that the whole "pal/brother" thing could carry over, even if Destiel went canon.**

Oh my gosh… (I don’t watch any of those four shows, but Mr. Mittens does… but I have seen gifs…).

BUDDY *gently embraces his buddy* YOU ARE THE BEST PAL *gazes longingly into his pal’s eyes* GIMME A KISS *smooches buddy passionately*

I always feel compelled to point out the fact that this is exactly how Old Married People™ talk to each other. Being an Old Married People™ myself, and most of my irl friends also being Old Married People… This is just… entirely not surprising at all. Because most of us managed to STAY married until we were Old Married People™ BECAUSE WE MARRIED OUR BUDDIES.

Where’s that post about how relationships are supposed to work like the buddy system? *googles really quick* <https://ariaste.tumblr.com/post/120001324304/relationships-are-scary-and-complicated-only-when>

I just read that post out to Mr. Mittens, and he said, “I can’t think of anyone I’d rather spend the day at the zoo with. Except maybe Jane Goodall. For reasons. She can come with us to see the monkey cage.” So that kind of sums up the last 22 years of my life. :P

But I think that’s the whole point here. He didn’t stop being my buddy when we started dating, you know? We didn’t change how we talk to each other and relate to each other. We didn’t have to stop being  _friends_  in order to become something else, too.

Which is why the more I think about it, the more PAL is not about the word itself, but ///how he said it./// Dean calls people “pal” A LOT. But almost exclusively in a way that sounds sarcastic or dismissive. I don’t think Dean Winchester has ever called someone pal with such  _fondness_  before. GAH.

What a goob.

(also, i have said the previous sentence to Mr. Mittens with fondness. In the language of Old Married People™ calling your beloved “you goob” is a sign of love)

But let’s be perfectly clear here, this does NOT preclude the need for complete and open honesty here. I mean, if I’d gone the last 22 years without explicitly telling Mr. Mittens that I loved him, with all the attendant communications that led to us getting married in the first place, we wouldn’t still be here together, you know? Dean and Cas still need to say those other words, but since neither of them has seen the other’s side of things the way WE have, and no matter how much they hint at having done things together that we HAVEN’T seen (like the mixtape or watching Tombstone) that remind us about the fact they DO talk and hang out (and apparently do “coupley” stuff >.>), after all these years, I really hope if there’s a major change in their relationship status, that scene would actually make it onto our screens…

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	178. Chapter 178

[Nov 30, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/168052766435/i-know-some-people-dont-like-31-but-really-do)

18 notes

**Anonymous asked: I know some people don’t like 3.1 but really do. One of the things l like about it is that shout out to Scooby Doo. I know it might be obvious but I think it would be fun when the Scooby Doo eppy airs this season that we get all of those mentions throughout the series in the previouslies opener. :) :)**

Heh, that would be fun. :)

And yeah, I just watched 3.01 too (and I have a really long post I want to write about 2.22 and 13.06, but my internet is being REALLY wonky today so it’ll likely have to wait… *crosses fingers that this will actually post* *fuck you verizon this is not what I pay you asshats $90 a month for ALREADY you jerks* *get your shit together*)

But yes, 3.01 is really agonizing. Dean’s just come off this wild roller coaster couple of days:

  * Sam is kidnapped by demons
  * Through Andy Gallagher, Sam sends Dean psychic visions of where they’re being held by the demons (this is Not Fun for Dean)
  * Dean and Bobby show up JUST IN TIME to watch Sam  ~~get murdered~~  fall in some pie
  * Like no matter how hard he tried to save Sam, because he’s a worthless failure, of course not only did he fail to save Sam, he failed by inches and had to WATCH his Ultimate Failure play out right in front of him
  * Because of those feelings of abject worthlessness, Dean sells his soul to a demon in exchange for Sam’s life
  * This is arguably Dean’s lowest point like… ever…
  * Because he was able to bring Sam back, however, (despite accidentally having a devil’s gate pop open and release a bunch of demons they’ll have to deal with sooner than later…) THEY FINALLY GOT THEIR REVENGE AGAINST THE DEMON THAT KILLED THEIR MOTHER
  * Like… their life-long revenge quest that had already claimed their father’s life FINALLY came to an end… everything they’d been raised to do, everything they’d sacrificed their entire lives for had finally come to fruition…
  * And there’s barely one moment to celebrate when the reality of what Dean himself has sacrificed finally comes to light
  * And the victory over the YED suddenly seems a little hollow… Sam might be alive but Dean’s only got a year to live. John might’ve escaped Hell but Dean’s booked a one-way ticket there.



 

and then 3.01… Dean’s backburnered all the worries about his demon deal and is trying his damnedest not to think about Hell, and he’s making the most of the year he’s got left. He’s, as Sam said, “polling the electorate,” having cheeseburgers for breakfast, flirting with witnesses at the crime scene in an exact visual parallel to how the demon Envy had touched the woman he’d affected into committing that crime in the first place… (interestingly enough, both “[wrong shoulder](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/search/wrong%20shoulder)” touches…). Dean’s already being directly paralleled to a demon.

In the episode we first meet Ruby (who will eventually be mirrored for Sam to Dean’s relationship with Cas beginning in 4.01), another couple makes a very impulsive move by infiltrating the bar where the demon was rumored to hang out, only to discover it wasn’t one demon, but  _seven_. Their impulsive move leads to one of them dying in a horrifying forced self-sacrifice.

So as Dean is blowing through so many of the seven deadly sins himself because he’s got nothing left to lose (hey, he’s gonna enjoy his last damn year if it kills him, because he’s gonna be dead soon enough anyway), he’s confronted with the literal incarnations of Lust and Gluttony and all their bedfellows.

But when confronted by Sam about finding a way out of his deal to save Dean’s life, Dean tells him about the fine print– if they do anything to break the deal, Sam dies. Period. And if Dean’s going to Hell anyway, he won’t have his suffering be in vain. Sam Must Live in order for any of it to have been worth a damn. (heh, literally)

**SAM** : So, what, now I live and you die?  
 **DEAN** : That’s the general idea, yeah.  
 **SAM** : Yeah, well, you’re a hypocrite, Dean. How did you feel when Dad sold his soul for you? ‘Cause I was there. I remember. You were twisted, and broken. And now you go and do the same thing. To me. (pause) What you did was selfish.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah, you’re right. It was selfish. But I’m okay with that.  
 **SAM** : I’m not.  
 **DEAN** : Tough. After everything I’ve done for this family, I think I’m entitled. (pause) Truth is, I’m tired, Sam. I don’t know, it’s like there’s a, a light at the end of the tunnel.  
 **SAM** : It’s hellfire, Dean.  
 **DEAN** : Whatever. You’re alive, I feel good – for the first time in a long time. I got a year to live, Sam. I’d like to make the most of it. So what do you say we kill some evil sons of bitches and we raise a little hell, huh?

Remember back when the idea of going to hell felt GOOD? Because dammit at least he wouldn’t have to carry the burden of feeling so responsible to Sam that selling his soul and going to hell for eternity seemed like a relief in comparison? Yeah. Good times… >.>

(please read the previous paragraph as if it were written in the sarcasm font. thanks)

But this brings me back to what I wanted to talk about regarding 2.22, and the entirely subverted scene that directly parallels what was arguably one of the lowest points in Dean’s life as far as his own self-worth, despite having finally achieved one of the greatest victories in his entire life.

(hauls out my [Subversion and Inversion tag](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/subversion%20and%20inversion) from s11 and smack it on this post with extreme prejudice. Basically this does not mean what you think it means on the surface, because context matters and everything is flipped now)

Now that I’ve set the scene for 2.22:

**DEAN** Well, check that off the to-do list. (laughs a little)  
 **SAM** You did it.  
 **DEAN** I didn’t do it alone.  
 **SAM** Do you think Dad really… do you think he really climbed outta hell?  
 **DEAN** The door was open. If anyone’s stubborn enough to do it… it would be him.  
 **SAM** Where do you think he is now?  
 **DEAN** I don’t know.  
 **SAM** I kind of can’t believe it, Dean. I mean… our whole lives, everything… has been prepping for this, and now I… (Chuckles) I kind of don’t know what to say.  
 **DEAN** I do. (He leans closer to the body) That was for our mom… you son of a bitch.

so we can compare it to the exact same words (”I don’t know what to say” and “I do”) to how VASTLY DIFFERENT the context was in 13.06:

**Dean** : Cas, is that really you?  
 **Sam** : No. You’re – you’re dead.  
 **Castiel** : Yeah, I was. But then I… annoyed an ancient cosmic being so much that he sent me back.  
 **Sam** : I don’t even know what to say.  
 **Dean** : I do. Welcome home, pal.

So let’s look at all the inversions and subversions of the 2.22 scene:

  * in s2 Dean had just signed away his entire life and had an appointment penciled in with a hellhound. In s13, Dean has just died and been sent back by Death with a mission, and the fact that he is Cosmically Important and not scheduled to die.
  * in s2 Dean literally had nothing to live for and was basically waiting for the end. In s13, Dean has literally just been handed a reason to keep on living and having hope with the return of Castiel. He literally says those words later in 13.06:   
 **Sam** : You’re in a good mood, huh?  
 **Dean** : Yeah, and?  
 **Sam** : Nothing. No, I-I-I just, uh… you’ve been having a rough go, so it’s… it’s good to see you smile.  
 **Dean** : Well, I said I needed a big win. We got Cas back. That’s a pretty damn big win.
  * in s2, the Winchesters have just completed their lifelong quest for revenge, and in s13 they’ve just embarked into Unknown Territory in this strange new multiverse that they’re only beginning to learn about, let alone understand.
  * in s2 that entire exchange was based on Revenge and Death, but in s13 that entire exchange was based on Hope and Life.



I could go on, but really.

 

[spn 2.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.21) [spn 2.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-2.22) [spn 3.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-3.01) [spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [s13 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s13-meta-rewatch) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [subversion and inversion](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/subversion-and-inversion) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	179. Chapter 179

[Dec 4, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/168191280505/hi-in-1103-when-cas-was-under-rovenas-spell-he)

20 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi! In 11.03 when Cas was under Rovena’s spell, he tried to kill a girl and then had a fight with Dean(and then Rovena broke the spell). In the end of the episode they all are sitting in the bunker and Dean is keeping ice near his damaged face to ease the pain. Cas suggests to fix that and Dean rejects it with “no, no, it’s fine, Cas. Besides, i had it coming”. I can’t understand why he refused. And why he had it coming. Sorry if you posted smth about it.**

Hi there… this was something that was discussed EXTENSIVELY back around the time it aired. My tags for 11.03, 11.06 (because this was still an ongoing conversation by the time that episode aired), and 10.22 (because that was the episode where alllll this drama started) probably contain more debate about this topic than you ever cared to read. :P

(here’s a few links to posts that address this directly anyway, save you a lil bit of time at least :P)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150562051940/i-answered-an-ask-the-other-day-about-cas-and> (already posted in this work)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150522376325/im-tired-of-cas-stans-their-double-standards> (please forgive the grumpy nature of the anon’s question… but as you can see this has been a thing in the fandom for a long time…) (posted below as *1)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/133340644065/re-the-talk-i-think-weve-already-had-it-in> (this post was made during one of tumblr’s “let’s fuck everyone’s formatting to make it entirely unreadable!” but I swear the post makes sense if you hit the button to reblog it, even if you don’t want to reblog it, and then read it all in order on the reblog post… then you can just close it out after… I swear this site sometimes…) (posted below as *2)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/131771929860/1022-and-i-had-it-coming> (not my post, so not posted here)

the tl;dr? I’ll quote the second link above:  “Dean, still feeling the pain and guilt of what he’d done to Cas in 10.22, took the beating Cas gave him [in 11.03] as retribution for his actions against Cas.”   Dean WANTED to feel the pain, and see the wounds on his own face, because he felt he deserved it after what he’d done to Cas (while under the influence of the Mark, just as Cas had been under the influence of a spell and therefore not in control of his actions any more than Dean had been in 10.22, but hey this show is all about suffering! :D)

 

[spn 10.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.22) [spn 11.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.03) [spn 11.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.06) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [it's spirals all the way down](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-spirals-all-the-way-down) [because these are the recurring themes that are STILL in the process of being addressed between them](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-these-are-the-recurring-themes-that-are-STILL-in-the-process-of-being-addressed-between-them) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

*1

Sep 17, 2016

163 notes

**Anonymous asked: i'm tired of cas stans & their double standards, claiming dean is abusive to cas mainly based off on dean beating up cas in s10, forgetting that dean wasn't himself he was controlled by the MoC, like cas wasn't himself all the times he beat up dean when he was mind-controlled, how is dean held accountable for things he can't control while they don't do the same when it's cas, it's frustrating, please i need some thoughts/proof that dean cares 4 cas & not abusive from some1 articulate, can you?**

Hi there. Yeah, I think most of the bitterest Cas girls blocked me last year because I was overly-excited about what I saw as the beginning of an amazing arc for Cas’s character development, so I admit I don’t really see a lot of their posts anymore. I don’t know what the current rhetoric is on that front, but it’s kind of disturbing to read your description there. I don’t really know what the heck to make of that.

Sam, Dean, and Cas have each made their fair share of terrible, awful decisions. They’ve collectively done some horrible shit to each other. Since we’re specifically talking about Cas and Dean for the purposes of your question, I guess I’ll try to leave Sam out of this and just focus on the crap that Dean and Cas have done to each other, both in the name of the greater good and in the misguided attempt to “protect” each other, as well as those things that fall into the category of “done while mindfucked so probably is entitled to at least a little leeway and not 100% responsible for the fuckery.”

*flashback harp noises and rippling effect*

S4 Cas demanded that Dean torture Alistair for info. Granted it was a trap for both of them set by Uriel, and they both nearly died because of it, but still. It was one of the worst things I have ever seen. Dean practically begging not to, and even Cas saying if there was any other way he wouldn’t be doing this, but… yeah. Ugh. I mean, even making Dean choose to save that town in 4.07 was pretty awful, especially when Dean learned the truth about Cas’s test.

But IT LED TO CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT! CAS GREW A FEELING! ANOTHER DOORWAY TO DOUBT! It began to change him in all the best ways. And every time Cas and Dean have purposely or inadvertently hurt each other, it’s been a push to do something different. It’s character growth.

And ugh, I can already hear the chorus of  _but why do they have to beat each other for character development! That’s SOOOOO not healthy! It’s abuse! UGH!_

This is a story. These are plot devices. They are not real people.This is not real life. In real life, we don’t have literal angels and demons trying to start the apocalypse, and men who were born to be the true vessels of Michael and Lucifer who were fated to destroy the world, either. Okay, moving on to your actual question.

I guess I should just focus on s8-11 here, because this is getting more specifically to the point. Because of the crushing weight of his guilt, Cas left Dean– a squishy nougat-filled human– to fend for himself in Purgatory. It was the least he felt he could do to protect Dean from the Leviathan. When Dean got out, Cas chose to stay behind. It pushed every abandonment issue button Dean had.

When Cas came back, he was  _unknowingly being controlled by Naomi who’d trained him to kill thousands of copies of Dean_. Was he responsible for his actions in the crypt in 8.17? He broke free of Naomi’s control and healed Dean, but protecting the Angel Tablet was hardwired into him. Instead of staying with Dean, he flew away to protect the tablet. I’m not convinced that he had any other choice. The tablet was now controlling him, demanding his protection above everything else, even his feelings for Dean. Even though Dean still was technically in danger from Crowley and Naomi.

Do we blame Cas for that? I mean, Dean sort of did at the time. He cold-shouldered Cas until he came to a sort-of understanding about Naomi. Until he got a glimpse of the bigger picture. And then Cas abandoned him again, and then the angels fell.

So, Dean was in an impossible situation largely of his own making but spiraled so far out of his control that it’s literally sickening. Based on Cas’s word that “Ezekiel” was a good angel that could be trusted, Dean trusted Gadreel… and then paid the price for it. Desperate times and all that… (and because of the nature of your question, I’m leaving out all the crap with Sam at the moment because that’s a whole other can of worms).

So this angel’s essentially holding Sam hostage and making demands on Dean. He’s got the equivalent of a gun to Sam’s head when he tells Dean that Cas can’t stay at the bunker. Yeah, as far as we know Dean just pushed Cas out the front door without a damn thing, but really? You don’t think he at least gave Cas a bag of gear and a couple of fake credit cards or a wad of cash? Okay. And yeah, I HATE that that whole scenario happened at all, but again, Cas was human and the only angel Dean had to help him keep Sam alive was making this demand on him. DEAN hated it, too, but at least Cas had a chance of survival out on his own. Without “Zeke,” Sam was as good as dead. No takebacksies. It wasn’t Dean “choosing Sam over Cas.” Considering his options, he chose life. Sending Cas away wasn’t issuing him a death sentence, after all.

And yes, that’s what I imagine was going through Dean’s mind at the time. I didn’t say it was  _good_  or  _healthy_  or  _right_ , just honest and hella heartbreaking.

Do we blame Dean for this? Really? REALLY?!

I saw something once that said that Cas hadn’t really been responsible for hurting Dean in the crypt because he didn’t  _choose_  to be mind-controlled, but that Dean could be blamed for all the crap he did because he chose to let Gadreel into Sam, and he chose to take on the Mark of Cain. Well, yeah, but do you think he would’ve chosen if he had a crystal ball and could’ve seen into his own future? Do you think he would’ve chosen either of those things if he’d known what the consequences would be? Possibly, but THEN I would’ve blamed him for all of that. As things stand? Yeah, Dean had no idea what he was signing up for.

So that brings us to the horrible things Dean did under the influence of the Mark. Yeah, we know it amplified his own darker tendencies, but it was FAR more than that. It was literally the keyhole into Amara’s prison where she could whisper through the cracks and control Dean’s actions.

Look at 10.09 (and [I JUST wrote something about this the other day](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/150449434395/cloudatlascas-i-know-this-was-meant-to-show-how)). That was all the proof I needed that the Mark didn’t just amplify Dean’s “dark side.” It actively controlled him. He didn’t even  _remember_  what he’d done. Even Crowley told him that the mark had to be fed, and if he hadn’t been supplying regular feedings, it would’ve taken control and driven Dean to lose control. It was the mega-intense non-fatal version of the Darkness sickness from 11.01 (and from 11.20). He was literally being controlled by the Darkness.

The fact that Chuck said in 11.22 that Dean couldn’t take on the Mark again so it had to be someone else (and I cringed through that whole scene because it was just one more instance of Chuck avoiding taking responsibility for what eventually happened in 11.23, of reuniting HIMSELF with the Darkness, as it always should’ve been). Dean was somehow  _immune_  to it at that point. Amara couldn’t kill him, she couldn’t “eat his soul,” she couldn’t infect him with her death fog.

So, was Dean responsible for the actions that the Darkness drove him to commit? Sam wouldn’t think so. I mean look how hard he worked to cure the zompires in 11.01. He didn’t blame them for their actions while they were infected. He just wanted to save them. Same thing goes for Dean with the Mark.

Yes, what he did to Cas was terrible, but remember Cain’s words in 10.14. Dean had been “fated” to murder Cas, and he resisted. The combined weight of Cain’s prophecy and the influence of the Darkness, and DEAN RESISTED. He couldn’t do it. So, yeah. That’s pretty damn powerful.

CAS UNDERSTOOD ALL OF THAT. Cas forgave Dean, and probably blamed himself for not beng able to break through to Dean despite having not fought back. Despite probably remembering what he’d done to Dean all the way back in 8.17. Despite wanting nothing more than to make his friend whole again.

And then at the beginning of s11 when Cas was under Rowena’s attack dog spell. Yeah he seemed to have a bit more control over himself than her other victims of that spell (hooray angel grace, I guess?), but he was still fighting a losing battle against it. Dean, still feeling the pain and guilt of what he’d done to Cas in 10.22, took the beating Cas gave him as retribution for his actions against Cas.

Do we blame Cas for that? Do we blame him for hurting Dean? He’d been about to take his wrath out on an innocent girl before Dean stepped in and stopped him. Do we blame Cas for that?

Their actions weren’t their own. The two things were being used as NARRATIVE PARALLELS to show that both Dean and Cas WERE NOT THEMSELVES. Neither of them would’ve chosen to act that way. Neither of them were in control of their actions or in possession of reason.

Does that somehow cancel out their actions and clean the slate? Not by a long shot. Does that make their actions forgivable? Probably not entirely. Does that help EACH OF THEM UNDERSTAND WHAT THE OTHER WAS GOING THROUGH AND MAYBE CONTRIBUTE TO WHY THE CHARACTERS THEMSELVES BEAR NO GRUDGES AGAINST ONE ANOTHER?! Well, yeah.

So why should we bear grudges against either of them?

Dammit, they live some pretty fucked up lives. But again, they are fictional characters. We only get to see about 17 hours of their lives out of an entire year. Should we assume they’ve had conversations that we’re not privy to? Probably. Should we assume they’ve apologized to one another off screen and that’s why they seem to have gotten over this? It’s likely that we’re to assume  _something_  of the sort, because Dean and Cas themselves are behaving as if they have gotten over these things.

Are we ever going to be shown A Very Special Supernatural Group Therapy Episode, oh god no I hope not.

When the characters on tv shows seem to have put their issues behind them, it’s okay to accept that they’ve forgiven each other and move on. And then write fanfic to fill the gap.

[the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [spn 11.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.22) [spn 10.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-10.22) [spn 11.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.20) [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23)[spn 8.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.17) [spn 11.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.01) [spn 11.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.03) [spn 4.16](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.16) [spn 4.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.07) [probably more but eh too many to tag](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/probably-more-but-eh-too-many-to-tag) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

*2

ludditeheart  asked:

Re: The Talk. I think we've already had it, in The Bad Seed- Castiel: "Dean, I... There aren't words." Dean: "You're right. There aren't words, Cas, 'cause there's no need. You were under a spell. It's fine." Castiel (gesturing toward deans injuries): "Dean, I can fix that." Dean: "No, no, no. No, no. It's fine, Cas. Besides, I had it comin'." I think in Jensen's Man-Speak, that IS Cas and Dean "talking it out".

 

elizabethrobertajones  answered:

I’m not totally sure about that just because the end of 11x06 was cut weirdly and there looks like there should have been a place for it even if the Sam wandering away thing seems to contradict that conversation’s place, because the ending was very choppy and they could easily have edited their way around it once they decided to edit that scene out… 

But I totally agree that 11x03′s non-conversation feels like the essence of what they would have said. I dunno, like Dean apologising for yelling about Metatron and maybe letting that do more of the work, just like not letting Cas heal him was carrying a lot of depth. It would have been  _something_  but like you I remain unconvinced we’d have had proper “talking it out” as the fandom would define it vs how Dean or  _Jensen_  would.

(And then in hindsight since it wasn’t really a big deal conversation in terms of word length or actual open emotional splurging, it would be much easier to forget)

[iwatchthepie](http://iwatchthepie.tumblr.com/post/133338305162)

I just went ahead and rewatched the whole episode and while I can agree that it was a little weird that we left Dean and Cas apparently engaged in a silent staring contest, if we’d gotten dialogue there it would have been an argument.  There was a lot of defensiveness on both sides in that moment.  Best case scenario, Dean walking away and saying “Screw it, I’m getting a sandwich/beer.”

[mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/133340644065/re-the-talk-i-think-weve-already-had-it-in)

And since the “there’s no need” and “I had it coming” chat, we’ve seen Dean and Cas having those extended phone chats all through 11.04, which we’re led to assume have become a common thing for them, with the undercurrent of “take care of yourself” and “let yourself heal” ongoing, since that was Dean’s big objection to calling Cas in on the case at the beginning of 11.06. We didn’t have any cute phone calls in 11.05, but after 11.04, my brain won’t let me assume that Dean just stopped paying attention to Cas for a month while he fixed up Baby, all of them hanging around at the bunker trying to track down Amara and figure out what the Darkness might be.

No, we weren’t shown any of that, but I’m calling that theoretical few weeks to a month it took to get Baby back in perfect shape a fanfiction gap that we’re meant to fill with at least  _some_  sort of communication happening between all three of them.

Obviously they are all still hiding stuff from each other, and are all still traumatized and suffering, but on a surface level, they seem to be doing the usual Winchester “push it all down and keep on swinging,” which includes appearing outwardly concerned and caring for each other while denying their own problems.

Dean may have been yelling at Cas for letting Metatron go there, and any conversation may have devolved into more yelling, because Cas was also yelling at Dean for letting Amara go. But I think they each saw a little something in the other there, some bit of recognition of the fear and anger and confusion about what’s happened to all of them. But they’re all still hiding things, and until the facade cracks and they can’t keep these things bottled up any longer, they’re only going to be able to react with defensive anger.

Just like Dean and Sam’s argument in 11.01 about how to handle the zompires: Dean wanted to put their issues aside to be dealt with later and jump into action to destroy the threat and get the survivors (baby Amara and Jenna) to safety. He made an action plan, and wanted to take care of business:

> **Dean:**  We can’t save Cas if we’re stuck in some hospital, okay. Just like I can’t strap on a time machine, go back and tell Cain to stick that Mark up his ass, or stop you from releasing the Darkness. Now have we made mistakes? Yes, hell yes. And we can analyze each and everyone one of them over a couple of frosty’s when we are old and farting sawdust and out of this room! Right now all I can do is gear up, go out and save that frickin’ baby, which is exactly what I’m gonna do. 

This is STILL Dean’s mindset going forward, because if he stops to analyze their mistakes now, I think he’s petrified that the crushing weight of guilt and despair might not let him get back up to fight again. Sooner or later, they’re going to hit a point where they have no other way forward BUT to talk out their problems, and the mountain of things they’ve each internalized in order to push forward and keep fighting has started to make Everest look small. They’re not going to knock it down with a few understanding words in a 30 second conversation.

I also don’t think we’re going to get a whole Winchester Group Therapy episode. We’re going to have moments like all the ones we’ve pointed out in this post where we see small changes in how they relate to each other. Small apologies, proofs that they are each forgiven, bursts of honesty (even if provoked out of desperation, such as Sam’s visions overtaking him and Dean or Cas realizing what’s going on; or Sam and Cas realize that, for all his bravado going out to hunt Amara in 11.06, he might literally  _not be able to kill her_ , not for lack of trying, but because something larger than him is preventing him from harming her). They’re all going to get to a point where none of them are going to be able to, as you say, stow their crap. It’s just not going to happen right away or all at once, and I’m fine with that.

Source: [elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/133334665653/re-the-talk-i-think-weve-already-had-it-in)

 

[#spn 11.06](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.06) [#spn 11.03](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.03) [#spn 11.04](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.04) [#spn 11.05](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.05) [#spn s11](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s11) [#team free ptsd](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/team-free-ptsd) [#i'm hopeful that this will continue to be addressed simply because it has been an ongoing week-to-week continuation already](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27m-hopeful-that-this-will-continue-to-be-addressed-simply-because-it-has-been-an-ongoing-week-to-week-continuation-already) [#they haven't dropped the ball on it yet and seems to be a continuing and growing theme of the season](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/they-haven%27t-dropped-the-ball-on-it-yet-and-seems-to-be-a-continuing-and-growing-theme-of-the-season) [#because isn't that the largest theme of the season? You can't outrun your past and you have to live with your choices](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/because-isn%27t-that-the-largest-theme-of-the-season%3F-You-can%27t-outrun-your-past-and-you-have-to-live-with-your-choices) [#and right now they are still trying to run but they can't keep it up forever](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/and-right-now-they-are-still-trying-to-run-but-they-can%27t-keep-it-up-forever) [#wherein i jump on yet another perfectly fine post and blargh all over it](https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/wherein-i-jump-on-yet-another-perfectly-fine-post-and-blargh-all-over-it)


	180. Chapter 180

# Flee or Die

Dec 29, 2017

24 notes

yes, I’m watching the end of s6. Again. And I’m suffering. Again.

When will I ever learn?

We don’t talk about s6 because daaaaamn it’s the most painful thing in the history of ever. Instead of subjecting tumblr to a long series of largely redundant screeching agony (because I have screeched all this agony at tumblr before), I’ve been yelling it all directly at [@shixpe](https://tmblr.co/myoTfuZl8M9yFkfB7H8nXXA) and @elizabethrobertajones. Thanks for tolerating my nonsense. :P

*ETA: Okay, I said I wasn’t gonna subject anyone to my s6-related ravings, and then I went and wrote a few thousand words raving over s6 anyway… so I guess I should put it under a cut… Seriously, flee or join me in death. You’ve been warned :P

* * *

I am just suffering and trying not to write shouty posts about betrayal and temptation, and how crowley so thoroughly played the role of Devil On Cas’s Shoulder all through s6  
all because Cas felt the need to protect Dean, rather than letting Dean play Angel On His Other Shoulder.  
s6 is terrible

elizabethrobertajones  
yeah :(  
no one had a good year :P  
mittensmorgul  
no. :(

mittensmorgul  
gah, s6 is like one long burning bridge

mittensmorgul  
we go from Dean asking Cas to erase him from Lisa and Ben’s memories, right to Sam having lost all his memories (again, because of Cas breaking his wall), and then when Cas finally comes back in 7.17, it’s without his memories…

Sera Gamble has an amnesia fetish  
heck even at the beginning of s6, Dean’s the one who doesn’t know what’s what, but only because he’d been deliberately left out of the loop  
by the end of the season, he’s the ONLY one who seems to know what’s what  
mittensmorgul  
Gah and 6.22 metaphorically shatters Dean’s soul as much as Sam’s literally…

WHY DO I KEEP WATCHING THIS NONSENSE OVER AND OVER AGAIN?!

* * *

shixpe  
Srsly tho I love imagining Cas’ thoughts like yes I like this firey human XD

mittensmorgul  
YES THANKS AND NOW I’M HAVING AN EXISTENTIAL CRISIS OVER THIS BECAUSE I JUST WATCHED 6.20 AND CAS LITERALLY DID ALL OF THAT FOR DEAN… LIKE ALL OF S6 WAS ///FOR DEAN/// BECAUSE OF THAT ONE MOMENT WATCHING DEAN RAKE LEAVES AND HE’S WILLING TO BURN HIMSELF DOWN TO PROTECT THAT FIERY HUMAN THAT ONE SQUISHY LIL GUY WHO SHOWED HIM HOW TO DEFY DESTINY AND HOW TO HUMAN GAAAAHHHHHHHH  
*insert the This Is Fine.jpg here*

mittensmorgul  
thank you for letting me all-caps that directly at you instead of making yet another end-of-s6 all caps shouty post about it :P

shixpe  
kwahahahaha  
Cas’ tombstone:  ////For Dean////

mittensmorgul  
UGH. YES. LITERALLY. *cries*

shixpe  
rofl if asked what Sam and Dean’s tombstones would say id hope one of them say “Hell Stinks More Now”

mittensmorgul  
“Wow, we finally died long enough to get tombstones? Incredible.”

shixpe  
>incredible<

* * *

There is ***nothing*** here to suggest that Cas was in any way ***right*** in his choices. The entire narrative condemns him. It’s Cas’s betrayal that metaphorically burns everything down, that “shatters Dean’s soul” metaphorically, and literally crushes Baby, breaks Sam’s wall and literally shatters Sam’s soul into pieces, all the while Cas does his best to prevent Crowley from “cashing in” on their Deal and claiming any of Purgatory’s power for himself.

Flee, or die.

Crowley’s motive all along had been securing his position as King of Hell, and now post 12.12 we have a much clearer insight into his motives, knowing how he earned the job in the first place. So when Cas betrayed him on their deal, he went to the “enemy,” attempting to use Raphael the same way he’d attempted to use Cas all along… to secure his personal power base, potential apocalypse under a godlike Raphael be damned…

Crowley perched on Cas’s shoulder all season long, manipulating him right from the start (that we only see the full scope of in 6.20, so it loses much of its impact early in the season, until we rewatch it a time or 47…).

6.19:   **Crowley:**  Really, Cas? This is getting ridiculous. How many times am I gonna have to clean up your messes?

6.20: 

**DEAN** No, you had a choice. You just made the wrong one.  
 **CASTIEL** You don’t understand. It’s complicated.  
 **DEAN** No, actually, it’s not, and you know that. Why else would you keep this whole thing a secret, huh, unless you knew that it was wrong? When crap like this comes around, we deal with it… Like we always have. What we don’t do is we don’t go out and make another deal with the Devil!  
 **CASTIEL** It sounds so simple when you say it like that. Where were you when I needed to hear it?

(flashback to Crowley smirking as Cas reluctantly turns his back on Dean raking leaves)

or maybe

**CASTIEL** If you touch the Winchesters…  
 **CROWLEY** Please. I heard you the first time. I promise – nary a hair on their artfully tousled heads. Besides, I think they’ve proven my point for me. It’s always your friends, isn’t it, in the end? We try to change. We try to improve ourselves. It’s always our friends who got to claw into our sides and hold us back. But you know what I see here? The new God (pointing at Castiel) and the new Devil, working together.  
 **CASTIEL** Enough. Stop talking. And get out of my sight.  
 **CROWLEY** Well…Glad I came. You’re welcome, by the way. (Crowley heads for the door) You know the difference between you and me? I know what I am. What are you, Castiel? What exactly are you willing to do?

6.21: Crowley lives up to the letter of his bargain while violating the spirit of it, taking Winchester-adjacent loved ones in order to manipulate them… But honestly everyone and their uncle should’ve seen this blatant betrayal coming five miles off. This is Crowley’s standard s6 MO. I mean, did we forget how Crowley promised to return Bobby’s soul after Bobby “loaned” it to him to find Death in 5.21? This was the entire point of 6.04, the lengths Bobby had to go to in order to out-manipulate Crowley and reclaim his soul (which we only find out in 8.19 that Crowley still wrangled into Hell anyway, because that’s the kind of vindictiveness Crowley was capable of back then…).

Not only that, but his ~entire~ deal with Cas was founded on the single stone of Anything But Dean.

**CROWLEY** We’ll need expert help.  
 **CASTIEL** From whom?  
 **CROWLEY** From experts, of course. I know of two eerily suited ‘Teen Beat’ models with time on their hands.  
 **CASTIEL** No. Not Dean. He’s retired, and he’s to stay that way.  
 **CROWLEY** Fine. Then I know of a certain big, bald patriarch I can take off the bench. The point is…They can get us to the monsters. The monsters can get us to Purgatory. I know it.

Not Sam, not Bobby… just Dean. I mean, Cas literally pulled Sam out of the cage for this.

Also, remember back in 6.01 when Dean was first confronted with Samuel’s mysterious resurrection, and this was Samuel’s working theory:

**Samuel** : We’re guessing whatever pulled Sam up pulled me down. So, whatever this is, we’re both a part of it.

Doncha just love Samuel’s presumption that he’d been in Heaven before, when Crowley essentially makes it clear that he’d been in Hell all along in 6.20?

Anyway, back to the point. (no i lied, I don’t actually have a point, other than my need to wallow in the fact that s6 was awful for everyone.)

Sam spent half the season soulless. He spent the rest of it struggling with that fact and the repercussions of the terrible things he did without his soul to talk him out of stuff.

Dean spent the early part of the season regretting all of his life choices, and the end of the season paying for all his life choices. I mean, he was left entirely out of the year-long setup to all this trauma, ostensibly to “protect” him and let him be “happy.” And it was never truly happy for him (which he states unequivocally multiple times in 6.01). In the end, he wasn’t even allowed to keep the illusion of happiness. Everything Cas had tried to protect him from ended up landing directly in his lap anyway, and the very act of Cas trying to let him have his “retirement” was what eventually lit the fuse and detonated any possibility of Dean ever having that illusory “white picket fence.”

Because that was never what Dean wanted anyway, but the fact he was pushed into building it only to have to watch it all burn just seems cruel…

Meanwhile, that one act for Cas, letting Crowley lure him away with the promise to stop Raphael without ever having to bring Dean into danger, nearly costs Dean his life several times over.

  * Dean was unprepared for the Djinn attack in 6.01 (nearly died! but some of his friends and neighbors DID die because of it, and he blamed HIMSELF for it!)
  * We see the early (sans context) machinations of Crowley’s influence over the Campbells and the hunt for all the Alphas. Dean’s nearly done in by the Alpha Shapeshifter, who we later see Crowley torturing for info on Purgatory.
  * Dean was turned into a vampire because Soulless!Sam didn’t care and thought it would be an effective way to complete their hunt
  * Dean’s manipulated into working directly for Crowley ANYWAY via Sam’s connection with Samuel, which Crowley quickly capitalizes on…
  * Dean’s nearly fed to ghouls by Samuel when he gets too close to Crowley’s Alpha Capturing Operation… which only draws Cas deeper into the lies and manipulation, and further from Dean
  * Balthazar is unwittingly drawn into Cas’s side-plans to generate additional souls, possibly to “pay back” Crowley for that initial loan of 50k souls (as described in 6.20), when he un-sinks the Titanic and generates– shocker– 50k souls in the process… that seems like a remarkable coincidence…
  * I mean, Balthy was originally brought into Cas’s confidence under the pretense of using the stolen Weapons of Heaven in his fight against Raphael. But after 6.15, it’s clear that even with those weapons, Cas is no match for Raphael, and the threat is only enough to get Raphael to back off  _for now_. The one weapon we did see Balthy use against him in 6.03 only destroyed Raphael’s vessel, after all… 
  * Dean and Sam both almost got abandoned in 1861 while trying to find a way to defeat a problem that arose DIRECTLY from Cas and Crowley’s meddling with the monsters all season long… Eve only came onto the scene BECAUSE OF THEIR SYSTEMATIC ATTACK ON HER MONSTER CHILDREN. And then if that’s not enough, the reason Cas almost couldn’t bring them back was because Rachel discovered Cas’s true plans and called him out on his deception and betrayal. Again, Bobby had to “pay the price” for it all with the “soulonoscopy” to boost Cas’s power.
  * Dean LITERALLY got bit defeating Eve, and LITERALLY his own blood was the poison that got her… again, because Cas had LITERALLY been “depowered” as a direct result of his own actions…
  * Then when Cas finally gets his hands on the power he felt he had “no other choice” than to grab for himself, it overrides everything Cas had been fighting for all along. The entire purpose of his sacrifice had been to keep Dean safe, and then the final line of 6.22 renders all of that moot:
  * “I’m your new God. A better one. So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord. Or I shall destroy you.“
  * Thanks, s6. I feel sufficiently destroyed. :P



And that’s what I meant by my comment way back up there somewhere that s6 was basically one long, drawn out burning bridge. It hurrrrrrts. And it’s not until 7.17 that they start building a new bridge. It’s still under construction, and it’s wobbled threateningly a few times since, but it’s still standing. It just hurts every time I rewatch s6, every single time.

[we don't talk about season six](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/we-don%27t-talk-about-season-six) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [spn 6.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.01) [spn 6.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.03) [spn 6.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.04) [spn 6.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.05)[spn 6.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.07) [spn 6.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.10) [spn 6.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.15) [spn 6.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.17) [spn 6.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.18) [spn 6.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.19) [spn 6.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.20) [spn 6.21](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.21) [spn 6.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.22) [heck i never mentioned](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heck-i-never-mentioned) [spn 6.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-6.11) [which was yet another thing dean needed to do because of Cas trying to protect him](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-was-yet-another-thing-dean-needed-to-do-because-of-Cas-trying-to-protect-him)[then again this was a Major Lesson for Dean about life and death and the cosmic order... so i guess that's a plus...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/then-again-this-was-a-Major-Lesson-for-Dean-about-life-and-death-and-the-cosmic-order...-so-i-guess-that%27s-a-plus...) [and there was the whole thing with the fairies in 6.09 and that didn't end up horrible but also gave him a peek at an alternate universe](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-there-was-the-whole-thing-with-the-fairies-in-6.09-and-that-didn%27t-end-up-horrible-but-also-gave-him-a-peek-at-an-alternate-universe) [incredible how so many of these s6 themes are relevant in entirely different ways now in s13 no?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/incredible-how-so-many-of-these-s6-themes-are-relevant-in-entirely-different-ways-now-in-s13-no%3F)


	181. Chapter 181

[Dec 30, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169116670725/what-have-been-your-favorite-destiel-moments-so)

50 notes

**Anonymous asked: What have been your favorite destiel moments so far this season, and can you point me to any really in-depth, detailed metas that kinda encompasses the themes, narrative and direction of the show so far this season?**

Hi there! *points you toward my whole entire blog, except maybe the crack tags*

(no, there’s even probably some insightful stuff in the crack tags… no, wait, Let me get some coffee and then try this again)

Oh gosh there have been Some Destiel Moments™ this year, haven’t there? Oh my gosh. Just, the whole entire thing of 13.01, Dean’s desperate crushing grief, his bashed knuckles that are pointed out to us early in the episode by an angel-in-disguise but not explained until after said angel was unmasked and we learn her true objectives. How she taunts Dean with the “fact” that Cas was “all the way dead” this time and there’d be no bringing him back, as if she’d KNOWN how and why he injured his hand before, as if she’d heard his prayer to Chuck and then used Dean’s specific grief over Cas like a weapon to best him in that fight. And only after the fact do we get to see that scene where Dean prayed, and it was all literally prefaced on his grief  _for Cas_. Dean alone prepares his body, and throughout the episode he can’t even say the words “Cas” and “dead” in the same sentence.

Just, wow.

It takes us until 13.03 for him to acknowledge it, to not only say it out loud, but to scream it into Sam’s face, that the reason he can’t be okay is because Cas is dead. And again, wow. That whole scene, after an entire episode where Dean was barely holding it together, and we see him struggling to cope on what should be a routine hunt, he finally breaks completely.

But hey, Jack overhearing his rage and grief is what somehow prompts Jack’s power into a cosmic alarm clock that wakes Cas up in the Empty.

(and since we later discover that Jack has no idea he’d had any part in Cas’s return to life, that he had no idea his power had done that, but we’d learned all season long that his power largely acted outside of his logical control, but more on an emotional and instinctual level, and was triggered mostly by Intense Emotional Protectiveness… I mean, y’all do the math here. It’s a pretty simple formula.)

If anyone was confused about Dean’s major emotional trauma this season, 13.04 sort of clears it up by process of elimination. Sam is the one upset about Mary’s loss, but Dean’s largely accepted it. As Samuel once told him way back in 6.10, Dean knows how to live without her. He’s been doing it his whole life. But 13.04 is also a turning point for Dean and Jack, after Jack saved Sam’s life, his power deflecting a bullet… but at the very end of the episode when Sam hopes this means Dean’s finally making some progress toward recovering from his grief, Dean states unequivocally that no, he is not okay, and he’s still essentially hopeless. Sam still does not get it.

This is fine. Everything is fine. *breathes into paper bag*

13.05 shows us Sam desperately doing everything in his power to nudge Dean into all of his (admittedly terrible) coping mechanisms– junk food, drinking, strip clubs, and a hunt with just the two of them… just like old times. Sam can’t accept that Dean is just not bouncing back from his grief this time, despite Dean telling him that his pushing isn’t gonna help either. And we see Dean “going through the motions” one last time, partly for Sam’s sake, but also partly because literally nothing else matters anymore.

(and hi hello opening song of s13, I didn’t need what’s left of my scooped out heart anyway, please just take it already)

(sorry, I was referring to Nothing Else Matters, in case that wasn’t clear :P.)

Dean skips right from discovering the asylum was still filled with the trapped ghosts of the doctor’s victims– and probably a dozen other things they could’ve attempted to find the bodies and free those ghosts– and goes right to Plan Z, shooting his heart full of poison (Thanks for the diy death kit, Dr. Robert). He doesn’t even give Sam a chance to talk him out of it, and then accepts his death with a sort of cavalier “oh well” attitude when Billie shows up and reveals she’s the New Death.

Billie offers him anything he wants,  _and he doesn’t even consider asking for his own life back_. He asks for the souls trapped in the asylum to be released, because he doesn’t believe Billie will go back on her former ultimatum that the next time he dies will be the last time. I mean, CAS LITERALLY KILLED HER FOR THAT IN 12.09.

And then Cas died in turn in a jarringly on-the-nose, cosmically consequence-y fashion. Which Billie even says to Dean when he wonders how she was even alive, because Cas killed her. Her response of “How’s that working out for him” is like a punch to the stomach for Dean. He’s at such a low point he’s completely resigned himself to his own final death, because not even God, not even Death herself can bring Cas back from where he is.

Except…

[Originally posted by myheartofmusic](https://tmblr.co/Z5xP7y2RrbkZ9)

(pffft, I was looking for a gif of this shot, of the light blooming across Dean’s face as he realizes that Cas is alive, but this version works) :D

Then we have the fever dream that was 13.06. What the hell was that whole entire thing? NONSENSE, I TELL YOU. I MEAN IT STARTS OFF WITH THIS:

[Originally posted by slytherin-hunter](https://tmblr.co/Ztml0r2S46vyI)

THEN AFTER WATCHING DEAN GROW EVER MORE DESPONDENT OVER FIVE WHOLE EPISODES, IT MOVES ON TO THIS:

[Originally posted by theyremenofletters](https://tmblr.co/ZGsxFn2SPjrEj)

And when Sam is confused and questions Dean about this sudden turnaround in his whole entire personality, Dean basically gives 100% of the credit to Cas being back.

Please explain the entire first 5 ½ episodes of the season WITHOUT implying destiel. It’s entirely unpossible. Just… the whole narrative falls apart.

Yes, yes. At this point, folks can try and convince themselves that Dean’s feelings are purely platonic or familial, but then why is Sam’s reaction so markedly  _different_? And not just in regards to Cas. I mean, go back up and read the bits about 13.03 and 13.04, where they each get a chance to voice their grief. Dean’s bursts out of him like a wildfire, and is clarified with words to be JUST about Cas, and it’s literally debilitating levels of grief. Sam’s feelings of loss are almost entirely focused on Mary, as a specifically familial loss. Sam is our exemplar of what losing a family member looks like right now, lampshading just how powerfully Dean has been affected by Cas’s death.

Again, please explain that difference and the intensity of Dean’s grief as a purely platonic thing. The narrative is making it very difficult to dismiss a deeper relationship between Dean and Cas here.

[Originally posted by tinkdw](https://tmblr.co/ZSsAhf2S7Y8ht)

[Originally posted by magnificent-winged-beast](https://tmblr.co/ZYlTue2S3kQAk)

I mean… I’m trying to control myself about adding gifs to this post and I’m having a  _really difficult time_.

13.07 brought back “Don’t do anything stupid,” which in 12.10 got a bucketload of subtext attached to it. Human weakness, and the clarification that Dean’s not mad, he’s worried about Cas. It’s not just a throwaway line, and it’s not just an insult. It’s their version of  _just come home safe_.

And Dean  _knows_  something’s not right when he calls Cas, but circumstance prevents them from actually exchanging any useful information. And again, Cas is referred to as “your angel,” by Ketch specifically addressing it to Dean despite the fact that Sam is standing right there too, and the fact that Sam had been the one willing to believe Ketch’s lie throughout most of the episode. Yet, he still addresses this to Dean…

Then we discover that Asmodeus is impersonating Cas on the phone while holding Cas and Lucifer in his prison cells. And that he’s keeping Cas specifically as a bargaining chip to use against the Winchesters. Over the next two episodes, we discover that once again it’s SAM who keeps getting updates from “Cas,” and not Dean. Which is head-scratchingly odd considering all of this ^^. Because Cas is NOT CAS on the phone right now, and it’s easier to maintain the illusion with Sam than with Dean.

Incredible.

So that’s where we are right now. Well, as far as the destiel goes.

Now on to part 2 of your question. Some really in-depth and detailed metas that cover the themes, narrative, and direction of s13 to this point…

Again, this is kind of difficult. I think I summed up the basics here (well, leaving out the stuff setting up Wayward, and the AU’s and Michael and his agenda, and Jack, and Lucifer, and Asmodeus and his agenda, and the angels and their repopulation agenda… okay I apparently left out a lot of stuff… since the first bit of your question was specifically about destiel)

But I tag everything I write or reblog by episode number. The secret formula is this:

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn+13.06) (which translates easily to work for any episode by switching out the number at the end of this: <http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn+13.06>)

Note that there are 32 PAGES of results in this specific tag. That’s over 300 posts. Not all of them are meta, but a goodly portion of them probably are. From there you can probably find other tags that may be of interest in your quest for All The Meta. :D

[spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [spn 13.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.03) [spn 13.04](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.04) [spn 13.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.05) [spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [spn 13.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.07) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [and if you're specifically interested in destiel that previous tag right there is all about the ongoing narrative so... :D](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-if-you%27re-specifically-interested-in-destiel-that-previous-tag-right-there-is-all-about-the-ongoing-narrative-so...-%3AD) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	182. Chapter 182

[Dec 31, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169153351750/destiel-has-been-so-intriguing-this-year-i-really)

23 notes

**Anonymous asked: Destiel has been so intriguing this year! I really and truly am curious to see where the season takes it; because they've reached a certain plateau where so much has happened that they can't just keep going like they have been. Dean can't go back to how things were, not after experiencing what he's experienced.**

Yeah, they’ve kinda painted themselves into a corner.

A while back we were using the analogy of them walking down a hallway and every time they passed doorways they could take that would lead them off the path toward inevitable confessions, they’ve seemed to slam those doors shut.

Confession time: I just spent the better part of an hour looking for that hallway metaphor post, which loosely translates to “I spent the better part of an hour scrolling through my own blog and getting distracted by other posts and then giving up finding the hallway metaphor post.”

But the metaphor seems apt for where we are in canon right now, post 13.09, with Dean and Cas BOTH trapped– Cas in a literal prison cell and therefore locked away behind one of those doors off the metaphorical hallway for a bit, and Dean trapped in a literal alternate universe for a while setting up the “alternate universe” of the Wayward Sisters spinoff. It’s a convenient way to describe what they’re doing within the narrative structure.

It’s like someone on the writing staff took the hallways and open doors metaphor and just ran with it, gleefully shoving them through random doors and slamming them shut behind them. Honestly this is the only way they have to keep all the characters from grabbing on to each other and sprinting for that final door at this point, you know? Set them all running in side loops behind locked doors that they have to kick down.

It’s like they each got trapped in one of those [Escape Room](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FEscape_room&t=ODk4MzQ1ZTBlNmQ2MTk2NGFjM2VmZjg5ZWFhNDg4Y2U4YzAwMmMyNiw1UnV0T1dGTg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F169153351750%2Fdestiel-has-been-so-intriguing-this-year-i-really&m=1) thingies.

I happen to find it highly amusing, but I have a twisted sense of humor so. :P

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [it's spirals all the way down](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-spirals-all-the-way-down) [except when the writers have to throw down deliberate road blocks](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/except-when-the-writers-have-to-throw-down-deliberate-road-blocks) [because the spiral's gotten too tight for comfort](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-the-spiral%27s-gotten-too-tight-for-comfort) [pffft now i'm gonna forever think of The Bad Place as The Worst Escape Room Mystery Game](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/pffft-now-i%27m-gonna-forever-think-of-The-Bad-Place-as-The-Worst-Escape-Room-Mystery-Game) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	183. Chapter 183

[Jan 2, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169232960610/the-agony-of-1223-followed-by-months-of-angst)

132 notes

The agony of 12.23, followed by months of angst over Cas’s fate (knowing almost immediately that Cas would be back in s13), and then finally watching 13.01 and Dean’s abject grief, which only grew and sharpened over the course of early s13– all of this takes on a new depth of power going back to 7.01-7.02, and the last time Dean believed that Cas was not only lost to him, but really and truly dead.

Dean’s lost Cas several more times between 7.02 and 12.23, but there was never this sort of ~finality of actual death~ attached. Cas leaving him in Purgatory and not even trying to return with him, at least he had  _something_  to hold on to, that Cas was still out there. Sure, he was unreachable, but he wasn’t perma-dead. Hence why Dean continued praying to him like he’d done in Purgatory, and why his “hallucinations” of Cas before he finally broke free had given Dean his first shot of hope since he’d returned himself.

Losing Cas to Lucifer in s11 gave us the driven and determined Dean who’s sole mission for a good chunk of the season was finding a way to save Cas.

It’s like the combination of Dean’s reactions in s7, s8, and s11 united to basically destroy him after 12.23.

And ALL OF IT can be traced back to 7.01. ALL OF IT.

While I was typing this up, Lizbob knew I was watching 7.01 and sent me a link to this post:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169231173005/dean-has-a-wing-kink> (pasted below for my tags, at *1)

which I tag-rambled all over. I decided to clean up those tags into something a little bit easier to read.

This is the promise that Cas has been trying to live up to  _for years_  now. They’re the final words that Cas says to Dean until 7.17 and “I remember you. I remember everything.” (which, if you’ll recall, is ENTIRELY about Dean, based on the flashes of memories Cas sees as he remembers who he is.)

And now on to sort through that aforementioned tag ramble:

That promise right there though, it’s the reason Cas has done pretty much everything he’s done since then. It’s why his first act on returning (in 7.17) was to sacrifice himself again in order to fix Sam. FOR DEAN.

It’s why he ran from Dean in Purgatory. Cas couldn’t protect Dean from the bad things there, but he could use himself as bait for the Worse Things. He ran away to lure the worst of Purgatory away from Dean, to give Dean a fighting chance to save himself.

It’s why his first act on returning from Purgatory was to fight his way TO DEAN. It’s why he fought so hard to find a way to close up Heaven at the end of s8 and why he was so willing to believe Metatron’s promises. He just needed to do ONE THING to help Dean, and locking up the angels in Heaven so they could never interfere in Dean’s life again (because remember this was what Cas had sacrificed FOR DEAN before s6 started… he did ALL OF IT for Dean, BECAUSE of Dean, to prevent another apocalypse which would again put Dean at risk as the true vessel of Michael).

It’s why he stole Theo’s grace in 9.09, because there was no other way he could survive his imprisonment to warn Dean. Cas had been willing to DIE there until he learned that the angel who he’d vouched for in 9.01, the angel that saved Sam, had lied about his identity. Cas slaughtered his captors– angels, his brothers, whose deaths at his hands had been a personal torment to him  _for years_ , going back to his actions (again!) in 7.01, the reminder of which drove his early s8 arc, right through 8.08 where he admitted to Dean that he was terrified to see what he’d done to Heaven because what he’d done was so horrifying to him he was afraid he’d kill himself if forced to face it– and yet faced with this one fact that Dean needed to know, Cas killed at least half a dozen angels without hesitation just to pass that information on to Dean.

Everything after that boils down to FOR DEAN right through 10.23, and then right into s11 when Cas thought he was going to die from the attack dog spell. Even knowing he’d been essentially exiled from Heaven, he ran to the angels for help so he wouldn’t hurt Dean while under the influence of the spell.

He said yes to Lucifer in 11.10 so the Winchesters wouldn’t have to, and he refused to eject Lucifer when he had a chance in 11.14 because only Luci had the power to save Dean. Talk about a self-sacrifice… 

He volunteered to go with Dean to face Amara in 11.23, and only stayed behind with Sam because Dean asked him to. After saving Sam from the BMoL in 12.02, Cas went after Lucifer so that (again) Dean wouldn’t have to. Same with hunting down Kelly and the nephilim in the latter half of s12.

And post 12.12 we know… it’s because Cas loves him… 

And post 12.10 we know that Dean is his ‘human weakness’ who only makes him stronger.

He killed Billie and took on the cosmic consequences of Dean’s broken deal with her, and then when those consequences came due he ran to an alternate universe to stand between Lucifer and Dean. He shouted down a cosmic entity and argued his way out of the empty, pushing aside his own fears and doubts, because “who he loves” is stronger than “what he fears.”

* * *

So to sum up why I am gonna spend the rest of the week suffering through s7′s long and agonizing march through Dean’s first round of grief over Cas:

If you ship destiel and don’t like s7, I just don’t know what to tell you. There’s just… so much… 

*lies down on the floor and whimpers*

 

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [and i'm throwing on the tag for lizbob's series because i'm impatient and i think this is relevant to those interests](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i%27m-throwing-on-the-tag-for-lizbob%27s-series-because-i%27m-impatient-and-i-think-this-is-relevant-to-those-interests) [dean and cas are in love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-and-cas-are-in-love) [too many episodes to tag them all](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/too-many-episodes-to-tag-them-all) [s13 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s13-meta-rewatch)

 

 

 

*1

Jan 2, 2018

64,907 notes

  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsug9pJtlV1qzcnvbo1_250.gif)   
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lsug9pJtlV1qzcnvbo2_250.gif)   


[dean-has-a-wing-kink](http://dean-has-a-wing-kink.tumblr.com/post/94511284571/dean-destiel-this-part-kills-me-it-will):

> [gorhamdoll-deactivated20121010](http://gorhamdoll-deactivated20121010.tumblr.com/post/11270998475):
>
>> _“Dean?”_
>> 
>> #[destiel](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) #[this part kills me](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/this_part_kills_me) #[it will always kill me](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/it_will_always_kill_me) #[because at this point Cas is holding back the Leviathans](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/because_at_this_point_Cas_is_holding_back_the_Leviathans) #[he knows that he won’t be okay](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/he_knows_that_he_won%27t_be_okay) #[and what does he do?](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/and_what_does_he_do%3F) #[makes a promise to Dean](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/makes_a_promise_to_Dean) #[but it isn’t even that](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/but_it_isn%27t_even_that) #[it’s his FACE](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s_his_FACE) #[he’s looking at Dean - for what he knows is possibly the last time - and you can just see him memorizing every little feature](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/he%27s_looking_at_Dean_-_for_what_he_knows_is_possibly_the_last_time_-_and_you_can_just_see_him_memorizing_every_little_feature) #[the freckles - his nose - the way his hand is so soft on his arm](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/the_freckles_-_his_nose_-_the_way_his_hand_is_so_soft_on_his_arm) #[and Cas is just](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/and_Cas_is_just) #[in this moment](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/in_this_moment) #[wants Dean Winchester to be the last thing he sees before he dies](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/wants_Dean_Winchester_to_be_the_last_thing_he_sees_before_he_dies) #[AND I CAN’T](http://lizstiel.tumblr.com/tagged/AND_I_CAN%27T)
> 
> wow fuck you

Source: [cameronbaum](http://cameronbaum.tumblr.com/)

Reblogged from [amirosebooks](http://amirosebooks.tumblr.com/post/169230141125/dean-has-a-wing-kink)

 

[spn 7.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.01) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [that promise right there though... it's the reason cas has done pretty much everything he's done since then](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that-promise-right-there-though...-it%27s-the-reason-cas-has-done-pretty-much-everything-he%27s-done-since-then) [it's why his first act on returning was to sacrifice himself again in order to fix sam FOR DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-why-his-first-act-on-returning-was-to-sacrifice-himself-again-in-order-to-fix-sam-FOR-DEAN) [it's why he ran from dean in purgatory... he couldn't protect dean there but he could use himself as bait for the Worse Things](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-why-he-ran-from-dean-in-purgatory...-he-couldn%27t-protect-dean-there-but-he-could-use-himself-as-bait-for-the-Worse-Things) [it's why his first act on returning from purgatory was to fight his way TO DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-why-his-first-act-on-returning-from-purgatory-was-to-fight-his-way-TO-DEAN) [it's why he fought so hard to find a way to close up heaven at the end of s8](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-why-he-fought-so-hard-to-find-a-way-to-close-up-heaven-at-the-end-of-s8) [and why he was so willing to believe metatron's promises so he could do ONE THING to help dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-why-he-was-so-willing-to-believe-metatron%27s-promises-so-he-could-do-ONE-THING-to-help-dean) [it's why he stole theo's grace in 9.09 because there was no other way he could survive to warn dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-why-he-stole-theo%27s-grace-in-9.09-because-there-was-no-other-way-he-could-survive-to-warn-dean) [he'd been willing to DIE there until he learned that the angel who he'd vouched for in 9.01 that saved sam had lied about his identity](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/he%27d-been-willing-to-DIE-there-until-he-learned-that-the-angel-who-he%27d-vouched-for-in-9.01-that-saved-sam-had-lied-about-his-identity) [everything after that boils down to FOR DEAN right through 10.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/everything-after-that-boils-down-to-FOR-DEAN-right-through-10.23) [and then right into s11 when Cas thought he was going to die from the attack dog spell and ran to heaven for help so he wouldn't hurt dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-then-right-into-s11-when-Cas-thought-he-was-going-to-die-from-the-attack-dog-spell-and-ran-to-heaven-for-help-so-he-wouldn%27t-hurt-dean) [he said yes to lucifer so the winchesters wouldn't have to and he refused to eject lucifer because only luci had the power to save dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/he-said-yes-to-lucifer-so-the-winchesters-wouldn%27t-have-to-and-he-refused-to-eject-lucifer-because-only-luci-had-the-power-to-save-dean) [from the sub in 11.14... talk about a self-sacrifice...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/from-the-sub-in-11.14...-talk-about-a-self-sacrifice...) [he volunteered to go with dean to face amara in 11.23 and only stayed behind with sam because dean asked him to](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/he-volunteered-to-go-with-dean-to-face-amara-in-11.23-and-only-stayed-behind-with-sam-because-dean-asked-him-to) [and then went after lucifer in s12 so that (again) dean wouldn't have to](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-then-went-after-lucifer-in-s12-so-that-%28again%29-dean-wouldn%27t-have-to) [same with hunting down kelly and the nephilim in the latter half of s12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/same-with-hunting-down-kelly-and-the-nephilim-in-the-latter-half-of-s12) [because he loves him... and dean is his 'human weakness' who only makes him stronger](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-he-loves-him...-and-dean-is-his-%27human-weakness%27-who-only-makes-him-stronger) [he killed billie and took on the cosmic consequences of dean's broken deal with her](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/he-killed-billie-and-took-on-the-cosmic-consequences-of-dean%27s-broken-deal-with-her) [and then when those consequences came due he ran to an alternate universe to stand between lucifer and dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-then-when-those-consequences-came-due-he-ran-to-an-alternate-universe-to-stand-between-lucifer-and-dean) [he shouted down a cosmic entity and argued his way out of the empty FOR DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/he-shouted-down-a-cosmic-entity-and-argued-his-way-out-of-the-empty-FOR-DEAN) [okay... i'm a disaster... imma go back to watching this nonsense now :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/okay...-i%27m-a-disaster...-imma-go-back-to-watching-this-nonsense-now-%3AP)


	184. Chapter 184

[Jan 7, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169442120215/i-feel-like-this-is-probably-something-you-have-a)

392 notes

**Anonymous asked: I feel like this is probably something you have a lot of thoughts on, but you don't have to go in depth if you don't want (if you do that's also great!) Do you think about cas classifying dean as family and vice versa is a hurdle to be overcome if textual d/c is a thing that's happening? Obviously family includes your significant other, but as far as fiction, I feel like it's code for platonic feelings, because I try to think of any tv couple that started as "family" and I can't. Thanks :)**

[jensensitive](https://jensensitive.tumblr.com/post/169440191911/i-feel-like-this-is-probably-something-you-have-a):

> [flyingfish1](http://flyingfish1.tumblr.com/post/169398461928/i-feel-like-this-is-probably-something-you-have-a):
>
>> [dimples-of-discontent](https://dimples-of-discontent.tumblr.com/post/169333377341/i-feel-like-this-is-probably-something-you-have-a):
>>
>>> [destieldrabblesdaily](http://destieldrabblesdaily.tumblr.com/post/169313278659/i-feel-like-this-is-probably-something-you-have-a):
>>>
>>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169310236600/i-feel-like-this-is-probably-something-you-have-a):
>>>>
>>>>> Hi! I’m sorry I’ve been sitting on this message for a couple of days, but it’s not actually something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about. At least not specifically like this.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I mean, the first thing that came to mind at your question was [@destieldrabblesdaily](https://tmblr.co/mu1TgTD02zDH21pRIwZeu1g)‘s post from back during s11 (aah, s11 gave us so much…) about how they were slowly ticking off all these things from a checklist labeled “Obstacles to Canon.”
>>>>> 
>>>>> <http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/145130443365/hello-all-the-episode-did-in-general-was-tick>
>>>>> 
>>>>> There are four main points on Shirley’s list, only two of which I think are so completely obvious in canon now that there’s really nothing more to say on either subject:
>>>>> 
>>>>>   * **the vessel consent issue** : It’s Cas’s body. There’s no Jimmy in there. Cas has been rebuilt and resurrected multiple times by God, died and been burned, and came back from the empty with what  _must_ be yet another entirely new physical body. That is Castiel’s body. Period. There’s no “but what if…” left to argue on this point.
>>>>>   * **the concern that the show would morph into something it’s not** : the focus of the show wouldn’t somehow shift to Dean and Cas’s romantic adventures. It wouldn’t become a comedy, or exclude Sam. The tone and format of the show wouldn’t need to change  _at all_ , and that was pretty conclusively proved not only back in 11.19 with the way Jesse and Cesar’s relationship was presented, but *waves hand across all of s13* the show’s gonna do what the show’s always done. Nothing needs to change about the show’s format or structure.
>>>>> 

>>>>> 
>>>>> The other two points might be conclusively obvious to some of us (and honestly I have personally been satisfied by how they continue to handle these issues), but there’s still ground they CAN cover toward making these things more explicit for the general audience. And I’d argue that they HAVE been doing just that consistently, and even rather explicitly now in s13:
>>>>> 
>>>>>   * **Dean’s sexuality** : Shirley’s original post covered this extremely well from where we were back in s11 (so go read that right now if you haven’t already). I’ve added a heck of a lot to [my Dean Is Bi tag](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean%20winchester%20is%20bilingual) since 11.19, so I’d argue that at the very least it’s not something they’ve tried to back away from over the last few seasons. They may not have come out and explicitly said it in so many words, but the show has continued to escalate the subtext to the point where even the general audience has been noticing it in droves.
>>>>>   * **The Bromance Zone** : Back in Shirley’s original post, this was accepted as fairly conclusively evident from Dean’s pining for Cas back in s11, and how it was made painfully and explicitly clear in 11.18… but whoa have we ever had a lot of logs thrown on the bromance pyre since then. And I think this is the point you’re concerned about in your question above.
>>>>> 

>>>>> 
>>>>> You stated you couldn’t think of a single romantic couple in fiction that began as “family” or, I suppose in this case as “found family,” or “family of choice.” But I’d like to suggest that most successful romantic couples do begin as  _friends_ , regardless of whether they consider each other “family” before their relationship becomes romantic.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Confession time: I have never watched the show Friends, but I believe they considered themselves a sort of found family, right? And there was at least one pair of them that were actually brother and sister? And didn’t several of them become romantically involved by the end of the series? I remember seeing posts to this effect, but correct me if I’m wrong…
>>>>> 
>>>>> Another canon ship that’s often been paralleled to destiel is Castle/Beckett. If you’ve never watched Castle, they’re a pretty textbook enemies to friends to lovers to HEA, and it took like five seasons for them to get to that point. Thing is, the nature of the work they did together (police work) created the same sort of “found family” feelings that the Winchesters’ collection of allies and friends has. And their relationship included so many of the same tropes that Dean and Cas has… right down to the “deathbed love confessions,” amnesia, miscommunication, mutual pining… you name it… And we thought FIVE YEARS was a slow burn. Thing is, every time they seemed to get close to making some sort of dramatic love confession,  _for years_ , they’d back down at the last moment for one reason or another. For YEARS, they settled for what could arguably be considered a sort of familial closeness, because that’s all they thought they could have. Circumstance just kept stepping in the way…
>>>>> 
>>>>> So on that note, I’d argue that practically EVERY slow burn romantic endgame story progressed through this “awkward found family” stage. They’re closer than what could be called “friends” in the strictest platonic sense of the word, but short of confessing undying romantic love and attraction, the strongest word in their vocabulary for the care and affection they feel they’re allowed to demonstrate to one another is  _family_.
>>>>> 
>>>>> So back to Supernatural…
>>>>> 
>>>>> S12 approached this issue from two directions for most of the season, with a Compare/Contrast using Mary’s story paralleled to Castiel’s for most of the season, showing us a distinct difference between what FAMILY feels and does for one another, and whatever the heck it is that Dean and Cas feel and do for one another. On the other side of the coin, they doubled down on demonstrating the blatant differences from how Sam sees Cas as a brother, and how Dean sees Cas as a ///// _brother_ /////. It was demonstrated over and over again that despite using the same word to describe what Cas is to them, it’s unequivocally DIFFERENT for Dean. That leaves us to wonder WHY.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 12.10 makes it clear what the angels believe Dean is to Cas, his “human weakness.” We were shown Dean’s feelings for and connection to Cas, that Dean refused to save himself from Ishim when he knew that using the banishing sigil could possibly have injured Cas further, or even killed him. It wasn’t a risk he was willing to take. That moment may have been a small part of that episode, but right there, Dean had no reason to believe that Ishim wasn’t about to murder him. He surrendered his own life  _for Cas_.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 12.12 has Cas’s deathbed love confession, which people are still debating from a linguistic standpoint. But I’d argue that the fact we’re able to debate it at all is even further evidence that it’s something that we’re supposed to be thinking about, and wondering about. Or else why would it even be a debate in the first place.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 12.15 has Cas disappearing back to Heaven, the ambiguous phone call moment where Sam hangs up with Mary and signs off with “Love you,” while Dean hangs up with Cas. Loads of us had a  _holy hell did Dean just say that???_  moment and had to rewind to confirm that it was Sam saying it to Mary. Because of that debate left over from 12.12. Again, the fact that we all had to stop and blink at the implication shows that something is definitely different now.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Which brings us to freaking 12.19 and the goddamned mixtape. No amount of Bro and Pal and Buddy on Dean’s part can negate “It’s a gift, you keep those.” Sorry folks, them’s the rules.
>>>>> 
>>>>> And can we talk for a moment about how explicitly clear s13 has made Dean’s feelings, his grief that he textually admitted by yelling it all in Sam’s face was all about  _Cas_. Grief so powerful it somehow activated Jack’s powers (which he had no control of at that point and didn’t even understand that his powers had any part in Cas’s resurrection even after 13.06) and poked Cas awake in the Empty.
>>>>> 
>>>>> And then we have 13.06. I still haven’t recovered from 13.06.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The connection between Dean and Cas intensifies in 13.07, both through Dean giving Cas that same line from 12.10 (Don’t do anything stupid) which he clarified back in s12 wasn’t borne of anger, but of worry. Worry that 12.12 had honed into love, and 13.01 punched us all in the face with as Dean broke down and screamed his grief at God. I mean, the differences between how Sam considers Cas “family” and how Dean does is inarguable at this point.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I’d suggest that the definition of “family” isn’t so much something the show needs to clarify at this point, but something that’s been written all over the last season and a half in invisible ink, and all they need to do at this point is hold it up to a light bulb for the entire text to become clearly visible to everyone.
>>>> 
>>>> All the yes! 
>>>> 
>>>> This is very well put together, but also; I think something important to take from this, is that as much as we love to analyze things, or compare things, or consider things that have or haven’t been explicitly said in canon: Sometimes it’s okay to see what you see, to trust your own eyes and gut feeling, because for everyone who’s not deliberately blind to it, the difference between Dean/Cas and Sam/Cas at this point is so blatantly there in your face, even though they technically have the same ‘relationship’ under the umbrella term ‘family’. 
>>>> 
>>>> As much fun as it can be for all of us to dive into text and subtext and what not, by now all you need is a pair of functioning eyes to see that these relationships are simply not the same, and sometimes it just doesn’t go deeper than  _‘this is what they repeatedly keep showing us and putting emphasis on, so obviously they want us to pay attention to it because they’re begging us to see it’._ :p
>>> 
>>> YES to all of this!! And I laughed out loud at “On the other side of the coin, they doubled down on demonstrating the blatant differences from how Sam sees Cas as a brother, and how Dean sees Cas as a ///// _brother_ /////” although I think Dean also sees Cas as a  _brother????_  because he doesn’t have a good word for what else he might be feeling but he does kind of sense that it’s the wrong one.
>>> 
>>> Because, like, Dean has functioning eyes too. If nothing else, he’s not blind to the reactions other people have to him and Cas. And as droves of us have pointed out, he never denies it. Sure, the quality of the silence changes from defiant “I’m not even going to dignify that with a response” kind of stuff to “hey that’s personal and what’s more  _we don’t talk about it”_. The extent of this change, for me, was marked by the [moment in the mixtape scene](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2F3xusTWYWeC0%3Ft%3D2m13s&t=OTA0NTYxMGM5Yzg2MjI2NjcyZWMzYWMyMzUyY2RkZjc4ZTA5OTRlNyw3cm9WWHZIbw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F169442120215%2Fi-feel-like-this-is-probably-something-you-have-a&m=1) (THE FUCKING MIXTAPE!!! I will never be over it) where Dean says “you, me, and Sam, we’re just better together” and there’s a noticeable pause and sigh and head shake before he mentions Sam. 
>>> 
>>> I think others have said this, but what else does that head shake mean except “I don’t really want to be saying this”? Maybe it’s subconscious but Dean definitely feels like Sam doesn’t fit in that sentence. Just as the bro-zoning of the car scene in 11x23 was shot in a way that felt wrong, uncomfortable, and just  _off_  the addition of Sam is something that Dean knows isn’t quite right even if he’s not going to say why. We know it too. Sam isn’t the one in a fight. Sam isn’t the one who freaked the fuck out because Cas was gone. Sam is just glad Cas is back and is off doing his Sam things while Dean fumes. Sam wasn’t included in Cas’s gesture between him and Dean as he said “you mean  _we_?”. Sam is Dean’s human shield in this moment because otherwise he would fall off the Feelings cliff and he’s scared. 
>>> 
>>> Anyway, I got distracted, but the point was that the gut feeling you get when you watch a good story being told is probably the right one. I experimentally showed this scene and the reunion in 13x05 to a few people who have literally never watched the show and asked them if they think it’s over-reading to call it romantic. They looked at me like I was a fucking lunatic and said it would be an over-reading to say it wasn’t. (Then they were like “can’t we just put in our order for Indian takeout already?!” so I had to stop.) So: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and a mixtape is romantic and Dean and Cas are in love. The end.
>> 
>> [Originally posted by mooseleys](https://tmblr.co/ZfGnMx24XBioO)
>> 
>> [Originally posted by joelhammnd](https://tmblr.co/Z6z_as24NlByA)
>> 
>> Dean: [intensely skeptical “don’t lie to a professional liar” expression]
>> 
>> So we know what  _Dean_  thinks about all this
>> 
>> hehehe
>> 
>> (seriously, was Krissy the go-to “teen girl Dean mirror character” before Claire showed up?)
>> 
>> I tend to think that the Dean/Cas “sibling, or person you’re in love with?” confusion is a theme that’s been percolating for a  _reeeeaally_  long time now – at least as far back as this episode with Krissy, which is almost five years old. The theme gets put on hold for a while in season ten by the Carver plot accordion, during which all the big themes and plot arcs are delayed so the plot can be stretched out for an extra season. But yeah, this scene with Krissy is from 8x18 (written by Adam Glass), and then, a season later in 9x17, the idea is raised again, with Abaddon taunting Josie Sands about her unrequited love for Henry Winchester:
>> 
>> [Originally posted by docorwho](https://tmblr.co/ZMO1Ly1BCd733)
>> 
>> Abaddon: He loves you too, you know. Like a  _sister_.
>> 
>> …which is also from an Adam Glass episode. So he was returning to this idea and keeping it going. 
>> 
>> Tangent that isn’t entirely a tangent – This is also the episode in which Josie willingly agrees to be possessed to protect the man she loves; talks about herself in terms of her “usefulness”; and establishes that she doesn’t have her own family. She gives off  _lots_  of season eleven Cas vibes. Season eleven Cas is lonely and depressed and wanting to be “useful.” Season eleven Cas lets himself be possessed, and then he chooses to  _stay_  possessed to save Dean, and then he gets sibling-zoned at the end of the season. 
>> 
>> I think pretty much all of Cas’ s11 issues and story arcs can be traced back to season nine: his depression (9x06); his feelings of uselessness and his misconception that Dean mostly cares about him for his powers (also 9x06); and the potential that he could be possessed (Hael trying to possess him in 9x01). 
>> 
>> It’s not the biggest stretch in the world to think that the whole “the man I’m in love with loves me like a sibling and it hurts” issue is part of that. Of course, while Henry  _did_  love Josie like a sister (as far as we know), Dean doesn’t love Cas like a brother, but Cas doesn’t know that.
>> 
>> [Originally posted by impalaofgrace](https://tmblr.co/ZgMZ_d2RdyKGH)
>> 
>> (While I’m on the subject of season eleven, Amara also confuses her longing for Chuck with her interest in Dean, so that’s an example of that fraternal love/romantic love confusion that goes the other way around.  
> also Dean mistakes Jesse and Cesar for brothers and has to be corrected, which isn’t really what the anon was asking for but which fits into the theme, I think.)
>> 
>> I have rambled.
>> 
>> **TL;DR**  
>> 
>> If you want shows that have played around with the “fraternal love or romantic love?” question, SPN itself is one of those shows, for what that’s worth. It  _is_  a hurdle for the characters to overcome, I think, but it seems to have been deliberately placed.
>> 
>> also Dean is a tough but awkward teenage girl, as we know :p 
> 
> also arguably relevant– the scene in 7x07 where the museum guide tells sam and dean about “the campbell brothers”
> 
> _“Those two were the exception, actually – the Campbells. Got along famously. Of course, that was just a stage name. They weren’t actually brothers. That was a cover for their, um… alternative lifestyle.”_
> 
> which might just be a wincest joke, but i think sam and dean are actually supposed to be compared to the sisters that are the ghosts this episode. And 30 seconds later the guide gives dean the message from ellen
> 
> _“do you know an Eleanor… or an Ellen? She seems quite concerned about you. She wants to tell you – pardon me – if you don’t tell someone how bad it really is, she’ll kick your ass from beyond. You have to trust someone again eventually.“_
> 
> which is about cas as confirmed by dean at the end of the episode
> 
> _“Of course, ever since Cas, I’m having a hard time trusting anybody”_
> 
> And though I don’t think they were intending to really go anywhere with d/c at this point, I mean cas was pretty dead, the first arc of s7 was pretty solidly about dean’s complicated grief over losing cas and how it affected him so much more than sam to the point where sam didn’t get it at all. In this episode, sam goes off about how dean’s been acting and drinking, and he thinks it’s just because he feels guilty over killing amy. Dean fully admits that it’s not, that he knows he did the right thing with amy, but he also doesn’t explain, he waves it off with “I don’t know, maybe i just don’t like lying to you” but we see two episodes later, that he’s definitely not fine whether he’s stopped lying to sam or not (”you ever feel like he’s going through the same motions but he’s not the same dean yknow?”) And ofc at the end of s6 was the first time “family” and “brother” were used in reference to dean and cas, so all of this is in the context of that.

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [reblogged for this excellent addition :)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/reblogged-for-this-excellent-addition-%3A%29)

 

 

 

 

 

[Jan 5, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169354108385/if-anon-is-interested-and-also-the-flash-spoilers)

9 notes

**Anonymous asked: If anon is interested, and also the Flash spoilers ahead. Another couple I would say is found family, is Iris West and Barry Allen on the Flash. They were best friends since they were young and Iris dad ended up fostering Barry and becoming his surrogate father. They are now married.**

Oh! Well, there you go! Thanks!

(regarding [this post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169318011050/i-feel-like-this-is-probably-something-you-have-a) from yesterday about “family” relationships becoming romantic)

(I’ve seen maybe two episodes of the Flash because Mr. Mittens watches it, and I had no idea about this relationship, so thank you!)

I think there’s probably A LOT of relationships in fiction that fit this sort of pattern, of groups of chosen family pairing off into romantic couples, of close friends who were sort of “raised together” falling in love or realizing that they’d been in love for a very long time, of the lightbulb going off all of a sudden and realizing  _hey I’m in love with my best friend_ , or even KNOWING it was love all along but feeling like it was hopeless to believe the other person could ever feel the same, or circumstance or obligation prevented them from ever confessing or acting on their feelings…

These are all tropes for a reason, you know? Because they ARE very common in fiction.

 

 

 

[the tropes are hungry](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-tropes-are-hungry) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	185. Chapter 185

[Jan 5, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169353559035/a-life-well-lived-comes-from-the-structured)

59 notes

## A life well-lived comes from the structured pursuit of meaningful happiness.

In 7.15, this was Jeffrey’s motivating factor for enacting his plot to get “his demon” back.

I had a LOT of thoughts on this entire episode (as I usually do, because Damn You Ben Edlund), and I was ready to write long meta about dogs and deception and the things we love… but this line reminds me so much of this exchange from 11.11:

**Mildred:** You wanna know the secret to living a long and happy life?  
 **Dean:**  Actually, I do.  
 **Mildred:** Follow your heart. You do that, all the rest just figures itself out. I did that, I followed my heart. Traveled the world, made people smile, forget about their problems for a while. And then my heart said, ‘well, you’re done.’ I had my fill and retired and I love it.

There’s already been a heck of a lot of meta written about 7.15, and Jeffrey pining away for his demon as a parallel for Dean pining away for Cas (who returns to him in miraculous fashion just two episodes later… which I am watching as I type this up, so apologies in advance if I become emotionally compromised here).

But this idea of how to live that “well lived” life, tied to  _happiness_ , undergoes a complete transformation between 7.15 and 11.11.

Jeffrey’s sociopathic notion of “happiness,” tied to his love for a demon who encouraged his innermost dark urges, wasn’t a positive or sustainable example for Dean to emulate. Dean’s entire world had been burning down all through s7, beginning with Cas in 7.01 and continuing right down the line until he’d lost everything (and was on the verge of losing Sam throughout most of it… and nearly did in 7.17).

But  _a lot_  changed between the darkness of s7 and The Darkness of s11… including the fact that Dean spent most of s11 fighting to  _regain_  things the Darkness had taken from him during the entire MoC/Darkness arc.

As the first installment of the “triptych of love” episodes at the very center of s11 (or should we just call it “the heart of s11.” I think I’m hilariously clever sometimes), it sets up this “positive” and “pure” ideal of seeking a life of happiness by following your heart, with the subtextual tone of this conversation (and even the entire episode) as specifically  _romantic love_.

Which brings us to 13.06, where these notions of following your heart in pursuit of meaningful happiness are woven through both the sort of negative representation of selfish obsession via Dave the ghoul’s possessive feelings toward Athena as well as the way he continues to use Dave Mather’s visage (which in addition to resembling Jeffrey’s “love” of his demon in 7.15 also resembles both Amara’s obsession with Dean in s11 and the qareen’s literally heartless pursuit of obsessive and possessive love in its victims in 11.13 while wearing the visage of the object of their obsession, aka the “dark” bookend to 11.11 in that triptych of love episodes), as well as the innocent, via Athena’s Mildred-esque desire to pursue her life’s dreams while believing that Dave did love her and would enthusiastically support her “following her heart.”

After watching Dean struggle with abject hopelessness for the first five episodes of s13, and believing that any chance he had of truly being happy ever again had been lost forever… ONE THING changes, and he tells us in no uncertain terms:

**Sam:** You’re in a good mood, huh?  
 **Dean:**  Yeah, and?  
 **Sam:**  Nothing. No, I-I-I just, uh… you’ve been having a rough go, so it’s… it’s good to see you smile.  
 **Dean:** Well, I said I needed a big win. We got Cas back. That’s a pretty damn big win.

It might not all be sunshine and roses (pffft, because of symbolism), but it is  _hope_. Hope that he might be able to pursue that meaningful happiness again, and that it’s even out there for him to find.

I’m gonna call that progress.

 

[here have my belated thoughts on the whole love... and love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/here-have-my-belated-thoughts-on-the-whole-love...-and-love) [spn 7.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.15) [spn 11.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.11) [s13 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s13-meta-rewatch) [spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel)


	186. Chapter 186

Jan 9, 2018

30 notes

**[jeanjeaniethings](https://jeanjeaniethings.tumblr.com/) asked: Mittens! < 3 I have a very, very, VERY important question for you! When was the last time Dean and Cas had one of their staring sessions? One of their really good, Sam-is-exasperated, "just get a room you idiots" kind of staring? Also I'd love to know which eye-sex session they're put us through is your personal fave? :D**

I AM HERE FOR VERY IMPORTINT QUESTIONS!

(with the caveat that I have imbibed copious quantiites (quantities? HEY IT WORKED ON THE SEConD TRY!) of alcohol so my reply may be uncharacteristically screamy and/or incoherent)

This is a good question considering my current state.

The last time they had a staring match. Hmmm…. It honestly has been a while, hasn’t it? I mean s12 was rife with HASHTAG MARRIED vibes, which lent itself less to infatuated staring and more to just… general Old Married People™ sorts of interactions.

Like, the raw sexual tension took a back seat to the general “I am in love with this person like a complete dope and everyone can tell but me” sort of thing… 

I still don’t think anything beats the prolonged camera-angle-induced tension of 4.21 as far as the staring thing goes:

I saved this gif by [@elizabethrobertajones](https://tmblr.co/mgG_5cqPDBqPGN1DslU_e6Q) as “one long stare.gif”

and while this is a huge meta-worthy moment in their relationship fraught with [other Major Issues](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169509824880/elizabethrobertajones-dean-cas-are-in-love-a), (and look at drunk-me actually finding things and linking things of meta relevance! go drunk-me!), for sheer wtf sexual tension, I don’t think anything beats the Thelma and Louise speech… or maybe the Boner Scene™ from 8.07. Or possibly the “okay that’s enough buttons Tony Manero” scene from 9.06.

But Sam was only there for one of those. :P

I think that’s officially on my wishlist for s13 now. Please give these two at least one (1) scene in the back half of s13 that makes Sam feel Supreme Discomfort. I am just a small mittens. I don’t ask for much. But I am begging for this.

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [i mean what the heck else should I tag this?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-what-the-heck-else-should-I-tag-this%3F) [mittens's drunk spn wishlist i guess?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mittens%27s-drunk-spn-wishlist-i-guess%3F)[jeanjeaniethings](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/jeanjeaniethings)

 

 

[Jan 9, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169524824110/neatt)

22 notes

[neatt](http://neatt.tumblr.com/)

 

[ Mittens! < 3 I have a very, very, VERY important…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169523019205/mittens-3-i-have-a-very-very-very-important)

> 12x19 when dean slams cas against the wall and sam has to interrupt their moment

 

(I took the liberty of adding your second comment and I am too .. generally sloshed to wonder if this is the correc t reply etiquette rn)

But yes. Oh gosh… I just saw a post in the last day or so that included this scene.

[Originally posted by jenmish](https://tmblr.co/ZFTRHr2L4y4lD)

oh heck all i type in the gif search box was 12.19 and then corrected to 12x19 because it seems more people use the “x” convention rather than the “.” but whatever… THIS WAS THE FIRST GIF THAT POPS UP OKAY?!

So yeah, we have Feelings™ about this scene.

[neatt](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/neatt) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [heck i type scheherazade correctly on the first try i am astounded](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/heck-i-type-scheherazade-correctly-on-the-first-try-i-am-astounded) [it took me three tries to type 'astounded' correctly... heck](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it-took-me-three-tries-to-type-%27astounded%27-correctly...-heck) [and i still couldn't manage 'typed' ffs](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i-still-couldn%27t-manage-%27typed%27-ffs)


	187. Chapter 187

 

[Jan 10, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169551320560/rewatching-s8-im-always-tempted-to-just-meta)

30 notes

Rewatching s8, I’m always tempted to just meta everything… but I think of every season of this show, s8′s probably the one that really has been meta’d into the ground. Is there really anything new I can say about it?

Today’s selection on the TNT loop took us through 8.06 (vengeance between brothers on opposite sides in a war), 8.07 (and the return of Cas), 8.08 (this sounds like our kinda thing, there was a pastry mishap), 8.09 (gee, Dean, glad you finally found someone you could trust… *Sam’s feelings of inadequacy intensify*)

I love all the romantically-coded parallels in s8 as much as the next person, but I still struggle to see them as the main thematic focus of the season. Maybe this is just a function of having zoomed through the first half of s8 or so the first time I watched it, or the fact that I now know everything that comes  _after_  s8, but for me s8 is asking each of them (Sam, Dean, and Cas) to really examine who they are and what they want.

It’s setting everything they’ve ever believed up to be knocked over at the end of the season. It looks like they’re making choices throughout the season, but a lot of this boils down to anger, guilt, miscommunication, and my least favorite– the  _I did what I had to do_.

I don’t think Dean ever tells Sam why he trusted Benny so much, despite Sam clearly understanding some parallels to their past. Sam just sees the  _wrong_  parallels here. Sam’s seeing Benny-as-Amy Pond, who Dean killed in 7.03 because Dean thought Sam’s judgment was compromised and Amy the Monster couldn’t be trusted not to kill again. But in 8.09 there are  _two_  parallel scenes to one of the first vampires we ever met– Lenore from 2.03.

Lenore resisted drinking Sam’s blood even after she’d been tortured and weakened by Gordon Walker. It had been enough for Sam to insist to Dean that she deserved to live. In 8.09 Benny had the same reaction TWICE– after killing the vampire responsible for the deaths in town, he was tempted by Dean’s bleeding neck but walked away (and shared an entirely calm and rational conversation with Dean  _while he was still bleeding from his neck_  without ever showing the urge to kill him and drink him), and then not only resisted Elizabeth’s blood when Martin was deliberately trying to bait him with it but  _had been willing to lay down his own life for Elizabeth’s_.

Meanwhile, Sam can’t see past his own jealousy, and engineers this entire confrontation with Benny, having set Martin Creaser to keep tabs on Benny on his behalf. I think this sums up A LOT of their miscommunication in s8:

**Sam:** Any casualties?  
 **Dean:**  Martin.  
 **Sam:**  Was it Benny?  
 **Dean:**  He had it coming, Sam. I’ll tell you what happened.  
 **Sam:**  I-I know what happened, Dean.  
 **Dean:** Okay, you want to listen to me or not?

Sam hangs up in anger, having made assumptions because he doesn’t feel that Dean trusts him. I mean, Dean did send him on that wild goose chase to get him out of the way, which dredged up all his complicated issues with Amelia that he’d thought he’d left behind. The thing is, Sam had been using Dean coming back as an excuse. It was easier to shift the blame for his own guilt and his own choice to leave Amelia and that ~normal life~ built on lies (and the dog he ran over that brought that whole life with it) onto Dean. Sam could feel justifiable and noble about returning to hunting, like he had a new mission now that was important enough to give up that El Sol of a dream-life, and that he sacrificed something  _good_  because of Dean. But that life was never his, was never real, and Sam didn’t want to admit that to himself. So instead (as he confesses so much later in 8.23) he puts ALL of it on Dean. All of his own issues are funneled into this mistaken belief that he let Dean down, that he somehow failed Dean, and that Dean’s approval and trust is somehow more important than anything else.

It’s basically a gross disaster of codependency laid bare.

It takes most of s8 to tear them all down to that point, but the quoted conversation above is steeped in it.

Sam honestly believes that he DOES know what happened, and boy howdy are his assumptions ever wrong. Despite having witnessed the lengths Martin was ready to go to in order to kill Benny, Sam was EQUALLY unwilling to trust Dean as Dean was to trust Sam.

It really does distill down to “[Sam hit a dog](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169512805735/blood-brothers)” and “why didn’t you look for me in Purgatory.”

The few things Dean has told Sam about Purgatory have painted a kind of one-sided picture. Dean’s own guilt and feelings of inadequacy, feeling that he failed Cas like he fails everyone he cares about prevents Dean from revealing A LOT of the emotional and deeply personal aspects of what life was like for him over his year in Purgatory. Dean never tells Sam that Benny gave him the key to saving himself, which already (in Sam’s mind) gives Sam something to be jealous of– that HE didn’t even try to save Dean and yet this vampire did…

Dean never tells Sam that despite having this key to Purgatory’s escape hatch, Dean  _refused to leave_  until he’d found Cas. And this ALSO contributes to Sam’s feelings of inadequacy. Knowing some of the baser truths about Purgatory, such as this:

**Dean:**  You do see something… severely wrong here, right? Sammy, I remember every second of leaving that place. I mean I remember the heat, the stink, the pain, the fear. I have that whole ugly mess right here… and he says he has no idea how he got out? I’m just not buying it.

Sam has watched Dean continuously beat himself up over his failure to save Cas from Purgatory, while Sam himself hadn’t really felt any guilt at all for not trying to save the both of them…  _for a year_.

But “why didn’t you look for me in Purgatory” isn’t just about Sam running away from this specific incident, but goes to the core of all their trust issues and past choices that have led to their divided loyalties in the past. From 8.06:

**DEAN** : You want to talk about Benny? Fine. Let’s talk.  
 **SAM** : Okay. How about he’s a vampire?  
 **DEAN** : He’s also the reason I’m topside and not roasting on a spit in Purgatory. Anything else?  
 **SAM** : Don’t pretend I don’t get it. I know you had to do what you had to down there.  
 **DEAN** : I highly doubt you get anything about Purgatory.  
 **SAM** : But you’re out now, and Benny’s still breathing. Why?  
 **DEAN** : He’s my friend, Sam.  
 **SAM** : And what about my friend, Amy? She was what? ‘Cause you sure as hell didn’t have a problem ganking her.  
 **DEAN** : Well, I guess people change, don’t they? We let that werewolf Kate go, didn’t we?  
 **SAM** : She was different. She – you think Benny’s different? He tell you he’s not drinking live blood, or something? And you believe him. Wow. Okay. You know, you’re right. People do change.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah. I got a vampire buddy, and you turn your phone off for a year.  
 **SAM** : Don’t turn this on me.  
 **DEAN** : Look, Benny slips up and some other hunter turns his lights out, so be it.  
 **SAM** : But it’s not gonna be you, right?

And later, while Dean’s under the influence of the spectre, he gets some rather poisonous feelings off his chest in arguably the worst and most toxic way possible. Dean’s being supernaturally manipulated into saying these things and so Sam is able to dismiss them…

**SAM** : What do you want me to say? That I’ve made mistakes? I’ve made mistakes, Dean.  
 **GARTH** : That’s not Dean, Sam.  
 **DEAN** : Shut up! Mistakes? Well, let’s go through some of Sammy’s greatest hits. Drinking demon blood, check. Being in cahoots with Ruby. Not telling me that you lost your soul. Or how about running around with Samuel for a whole year, letting me think that you were dead while you’re doing all kinds of crazy. Those aren’t mistakes, Sam. Those are choices!  
 **SAM** : All right. You said it. We’ve both played a little fast and loose.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah, I might have lied, but I never once betrayed you. I never once left you to die. And for what, a girl? You left me to die for a girl?

For better or worse, Dean’s lil speech there about Sam’s “mistakes” (aka “choices” which Dean feels are essentially betrayals, with good cause…), this list of betrayals is inextricably linked with “why didn’t you look for me in Purgatory.”

ALL OF THESE THINGS, every time either of them brings up Purgatory, are now contained under that single umbrella of guilt. Just as “Sam hit a dog” contains all that baggage I wrote about yesterday (in the post I linked above).

S8 did a lot of things, but scooping up their codependency and packing it into tidy duffel bags like this is one of the biggest.

[s13 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s13-meta-rewatch) [spn 8.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.06) [spn 8.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.07) [spn 8.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.08) [spn 8.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.09) [breaking the codependency](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/breaking-the-codependency)[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [sam sympathizes and dean empathizes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-sympathizes-and-dean-empathizes) [it still kills me that at the end of the season sam and dean are so broken by this that their choices end up hurting EVERYONE ELSE](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it-still-kills-me-that-at-the-end-of-the-season-sam-and-dean-are-so-broken-by-this-that-their-choices-end-up-hurting-EVERYONE-ELSE) [thank HECK they're getting to deal with these issues differently in s13-- via proxies like mary stuck in her version of purgatory](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/thank-HECK-they%27re-getting-to-deal-with-these-issues-differently-in-s13---via-proxies-like-mary-stuck-in-her-version-of-purgatory) [instead of having to push through this as antagonists to one another like in s8](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/instead-of-having-to-push-through-this-as-antagonists-to-one-another-like-in-s8)


	188. Chapter 188

[this post make my zachariah tag feel Righteous with a capital R](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-boy-howdy-does-this-post-make-my-zachariah-tag-feel-Righteous-with-a-capital-R)

[Jan 10, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169546363530/elizabethrobertajones-dean-cas-are-in-love-a)

163 notes

  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/a138efc6fb262f498d0b298c48ad0e4c/tumblr_p2901cyti81tsvn0go2_540.gif)   


  
[ ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/206a0cdbee259cf16c165112f433ee18/tumblr_p2901cyti81tsvn0go1_r1_540.gif)   


[elizabethrobertajones](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/169542986487/dean-cas-are-in-love-a-hopefully-one-day):

> ##  [Dean & Cas Are In Love](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-and-cas-are-in-love)
> 
> A hopefully one day conclusive study of these assholes, hopefully told as briefly as I can.
> 
> Written for the people in the fandom who care but sometimes need a pick me up on this, and not written to prove a point to anyone who doesn’t already care. <3
> 
> * * *
> 
> From iron to putty.
>
>> DEAN  
> Why are you here, Cas?
>> 
>> CASTIEL  
> We’ve been through much together, you and I. And I just wanted to say, I’m sorry it ended like this.
>> 
>> DEAN  
> “Sorry”?
>> 
>> [Gif 1 context]
>> 
>> It’s Armageddon, Cas. You need a bigger word than “sorry.”
>> 
>> CASTIEL  
> Try to understand – this is long foretold. This is your…
>> 
>> DEAN  
> Destiny? Don’t give me that “holy” crap. Destiny, God’s plan… It’s all a bunch of lies, you poor, stupid son of a bitch! It’s just a way for your bosses to keep me and keep you in line! You know what’s real? People, families – that’s real. And you’re gonna watch them all burn?
>> 
>> CASTIEL  
> What is so worth saving? I see nothing but pain here. I see inside you. I see your guilt, your anger, confusion. In paradise, all is forgiven. You’ll be at peace. Even with Sam.
>> 
>> DEAN  
> You can take your peace… and shove it up your lily-white ass. ‘Cause I’ll take the pain and the guilt. I’ll even take Sam as is. It’s a lot better than being some Stepford bitch in paradise. This is simple, Cas! No more crap about being a good soldier. There is a right and there is a wrong here, and you know it.  
> Look at me! 
>> 
>> [Gif 2 context]
>> 
>> You know it! You were gonna help me once, weren’t you? You were gonna warn me about all this, before they dragged you back to Bible camp. Help me – now. Please.
>> 
>> CASTIEL  
> What would you have me do?
>> 
>> DEAN  
> Get me to Sam. We can stop this before it’s too late.
>> 
>> CASTIEL  
> I do that, we will all be hunted. We’ll all be killed.
>> 
>> DEAN  
> If there is anything worth dying for… this is it.   
> You spineless… soulless son of a bitch. What do you care about dying? You’re already dead. We’re done.
>> 
>> CASTIEL  
> Dean –
>> 
>> DEAN  
> We’re done!
> 
> What I love about this exchange aside from everything is how Cas is persuaded in the course of it, by Dean’s argument, by Dean himself reacting against Cas. We can see the difference in how he reacts to Dean - first impervious, but then allowing Dean to haul him around as Dean appeals to that part of Cas that is on his side and wants nothing more than to help him. 
> 
> Putting these two moments together, one from the start of the argument, one from the end, shows to me a visual demonstration - and this episode is full of those - about how Cas is changing. And how Dean himself has changed Cas.
> 
> And that too is a wider metaphor of how he has changed Cas over the course of this season.

  

[spn 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.22) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [dean and cas are in love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-and-cas-are-in-love) [this is it... this is the moment i refer back to CONSTANTLY](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-it...-this-is-the-moment-i-refer-back-to-CONSTANTLY) [i think i have quoted this conversation in meta more than any other single thing in the entire series](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-think-i-have-quoted-this-conversation-in-meta-more-than-any-other-single-thing-in-the-entire-series) [because that's how huge this is... this is setting up the entire foundation of everything they fight for on a cosmic level](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-that%27s-how-huge-this-is...-this-is-setting-up-the-entire-foundation-of-everything-they-fight-for-on-a-cosmic-level) [and putting it into plain words for cas... this is what helped him embrace his doubt and in a way was the template for](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-putting-it-into-plain-words-for-cas...-this-is-what-helped-him-embrace-his-doubt-and-in-a-way-was-the-template-for) [the crypt scene](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-crypt-scene) [and all the crypt scenes that came after it... this was the WHAT BROKE THE CONNECTION moment for s4 cas](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-all-the-crypt-scenes-that-came-after-it...-this-was-the-WHAT-BROKE-THE-CONNECTION-moment-for-s4-cas) [i'm sitting here watching 8.07 and cas telling dean it's not about fault it's about WILL](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27m-sitting-here-watching-8.07-and-cas-telling-dean-it%27s-not-about-fault-it%27s-about-WILL) [and cas exercising his will in purgatory and then getting yanked out by angels against his will...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-cas-exercising-his-will-in-purgatory-and-then-getting-yanked-out-by-angels-against-his-will...) [and that's not so much a destiel thing as a cas vs his own guilt thing](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-that%27s-not-so-much-a-destiel-thing-as-a-cas-vs-his-own-guilt-thing) [he didn't want to be saved... but now? after 13.04? he feels he already IS saved](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/he-didn%27t-want-to-be-saved...-but-now%3F-after-13.04%3F-he-feels-he-already-IS-saved) [he's still got issues to work through such as what he fears and who he loves... but at least he's got this foundation now](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/he%27s-still-got-issues-to-work-through-such-as-what-he-fears-and-who-he-loves...-but-at-least-he%27s-got-this-foundation-now) [the special agony of brainwashing](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-special-agony-of-brainwashing) [that's what free will is](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that%27s-what-free-will-is)[and it all goes back to this scene where he makes his first active choice to fight for free will and humanity](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-it-all-goes-back-to-this-scene-where-he-makes-his-first-active-choice-to-fight-for-free-will-and-humanity) [and let's be honest here... for DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-let%27s-be-honest-here...-for-DEAN)

[Jan 10, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169551320560/rewatching-s8-im-always-tempted-to-just-meta)

30 notes

Rewatching s8, I’m always tempted to just meta everything… but I think of every season of this show, s8′s probably the one that really has been meta’d into the ground. Is there really anything new I can say about it?

Today’s selection on the TNT loop took us through 8.06 (vengeance between brothers on opposite sides in a war), 8.07 (and the return of Cas), 8.08 (this sounds like our kinda thing, there was a pastry mishap), 8.09 (gee, Dean, glad you finally found someone you could trust… *Sam’s feelings of inadequacy intensify*)

I love all the romantically-coded parallels in s8 as much as the next person, but I still struggle to see them as the main thematic focus of the season. Maybe this is just a function of having zoomed through the first half of s8 or so the first time I watched it, or the fact that I now know everything that comes  _after_  s8, but for me s8 is asking each of them (Sam, Dean, and Cas) to really examine who they are and what they want.

It’s setting everything they’ve ever believed up to be knocked over at the end of the season. It looks like they’re making choices throughout the season, but a lot of this boils down to anger, guilt, miscommunication, and my least favorite– the  _I did what I had to do_.

I don’t think Dean ever tells Sam why he trusted Benny so much, despite Sam clearly understanding some parallels to their past. Sam just sees the  _wrong_  parallels here. Sam’s seeing Benny-as-Amy Pond, who Dean killed in 7.03 because Dean thought Sam’s judgment was compromised and Amy the Monster couldn’t be trusted not to kill again. But in 8.09 there are  _two_  parallel scenes to one of the first vampires we ever met– Lenore from 2.03.

Lenore resisted drinking Sam’s blood even after she’d been tortured and weakened by Gordon Walker. It had been enough for Sam to insist to Dean that she deserved to live. In 8.09 Benny had the same reaction TWICE– after killing the vampire responsible for the deaths in town, he was tempted by Dean’s bleeding neck but walked away (and shared an entirely calm and rational conversation with Dean  _while he was still bleeding from his neck_  without ever showing the urge to kill him and drink him), and then not only resisted Elizabeth’s blood when Martin was deliberately trying to bait him with it but  _had been willing to lay down his own life for Elizabeth’s_.

Meanwhile, Sam can’t see past his own jealousy, and engineers this entire confrontation with Benny, having set Martin Creaser to keep tabs on Benny on his behalf. I think this sums up A LOT of their miscommunication in s8:

 **Sam:** Any casualties?  
 **Dean:**  Martin.  
 **Sam:**  Was it Benny?  
 **Dean:**  He had it coming, Sam. I’ll tell you what happened.  
 **Sam:**  I-I know what happened, Dean.  
 **Dean:** Okay, you want to listen to me or not?

Sam hangs up in anger, having made assumptions because he doesn’t feel that Dean trusts him. I mean, Dean did send him on that wild goose chase to get him out of the way, which dredged up all his complicated issues with Amelia that he’d thought he’d left behind. The thing is, Sam had been using Dean coming back as an excuse. It was easier to shift the blame for his own guilt and his own choice to leave Amelia and that ~normal life~ built on lies (and the dog he ran over that brought that whole life with it) onto Dean. Sam could feel justifiable and noble about returning to hunting, like he had a new mission now that was important enough to give up that El Sol of a dream-life, and that he sacrificed something  _good_  because of Dean. But that life was never his, was never real, and Sam didn’t want to admit that to himself. So instead (as he confesses so much later in 8.23) he puts ALL of it on Dean. All of his own issues are funneled into this mistaken belief that he let Dean down, that he somehow failed Dean, and that Dean’s approval and trust is somehow more important than anything else.

It’s basically a gross disaster of codependency laid bare.

It takes most of s8 to tear them all down to that point, but the quoted conversation above is steeped in it.

Sam honestly believes that he DOES know what happened, and boy howdy are his assumptions ever wrong. Despite having witnessed the lengths Martin was ready to go to in order to kill Benny, Sam was EQUALLY unwilling to trust Dean as Dean was to trust Sam.

It really does distill down to “[Sam hit a dog](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169512805735/blood-brothers)” and “why didn’t you look for me in Purgatory.”

The few things Dean has told Sam about Purgatory have painted a kind of one-sided picture. Dean’s own guilt and feelings of inadequacy, feeling that he failed Cas like he fails everyone he cares about prevents Dean from revealing A LOT of the emotional and deeply personal aspects of what life was like for him over his year in Purgatory. Dean never tells Sam that Benny gave him the key to saving himself, which already (in Sam’s mind) gives Sam something to be jealous of– that HE didn’t even try to save Dean and yet this vampire did…

Dean never tells Sam that despite having this key to Purgatory’s escape hatch, Dean  _refused to leave_  until he’d found Cas. And this ALSO contributes to Sam’s feelings of inadequacy. Knowing some of the baser truths about Purgatory, such as this:

 **Dean:**  You do see something… severely wrong here, right? Sammy, I remember every second of leaving that place. I mean I remember the heat, the stink, the pain, the fear. I have that whole ugly mess right here… and he says he has no idea how he got out? I’m just not buying it.

Sam has watched Dean continuously beat himself up over his failure to save Cas from Purgatory, while Sam himself hadn’t really felt any guilt at all for not trying to save the both of them…  _for a year_.

But “why didn’t you look for me in Purgatory” isn’t just about Sam running away from this specific incident, but goes to the core of all their trust issues and past choices that have led to their divided loyalties in the past. From 8.06:

 **DEAN** : You want to talk about Benny? Fine. Let’s talk.  
 **SAM** : Okay. How about he’s a vampire?  
 **DEAN** : He’s also the reason I’m topside and not roasting on a spit in Purgatory. Anything else?  
 **SAM** : Don’t pretend I don’t get it. I know you had to do what you had to down there.  
 **DEAN** : I highly doubt you get anything about Purgatory.  
 **SAM** : But you’re out now, and Benny’s still breathing. Why?  
 **DEAN** : He’s my friend, Sam.  
 **SAM** : And what about my friend, Amy? She was what? ‘Cause you sure as hell didn’t have a problem ganking her.  
 **DEAN** : Well, I guess people change, don’t they? We let that werewolf Kate go, didn’t we?  
 **SAM** : She was different. She – you think Benny’s different? He tell you he’s not drinking live blood, or something? And you believe him. Wow. Okay. You know, you’re right. People do change.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah. I got a vampire buddy, and you turn your phone off for a year.  
 **SAM** : Don’t turn this on me.  
 **DEAN** : Look, Benny slips up and some other hunter turns his lights out, so be it.  
 **SAM** : But it’s not gonna be you, right?

And later, while Dean’s under the influence of the spectre, he gets some rather poisonous feelings off his chest in arguably the worst and most toxic way possible. Dean’s being supernaturally manipulated into saying these things and so Sam is able to dismiss them…

 **SAM** : What do you want me to say? That I’ve made mistakes? I’ve made mistakes, Dean.  
 **GARTH** : That’s not Dean, Sam.  
 **DEAN** : Shut up! Mistakes? Well, let’s go through some of Sammy’s greatest hits. Drinking demon blood, check. Being in cahoots with Ruby. Not telling me that you lost your soul. Or how about running around with Samuel for a whole year, letting me think that you were dead while you’re doing all kinds of crazy. Those aren’t mistakes, Sam. Those are choices!  
 **SAM** : All right. You said it. We’ve both played a little fast and loose.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah, I might have lied, but I never once betrayed you. I never once left you to die. And for what, a girl? You left me to die for a girl?

For better or worse, Dean’s lil speech there about Sam’s “mistakes” (aka “choices” which Dean feels are essentially betrayals, with good cause…), this list of betrayals is inextricably linked with “why didn’t you look for me in Purgatory.”

ALL OF THESE THINGS, every time either of them brings up Purgatory, are now contained under that single umbrella of guilt. Just as “Sam hit a dog” contains all that baggage I wrote about yesterday (in the post I linked above).

S8 did a lot of things, but scooping up their codependency and packing it into tidy duffel bags like this is one of the biggest.

[s13 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s13-meta-rewatch) [spn 8.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.06) [spn 8.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.07) [spn 8.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.08) [spn 8.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.09) [breaking the codependency](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/breaking-the-codependency)[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [sam sympathizes and dean empathizes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-sympathizes-and-dean-empathizes) [it still kills me that at the end of the season sam and dean are so broken by this that their choices end up hurting EVERYONE ELSE](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it-still-kills-me-that-at-the-end-of-the-season-sam-and-dean-are-so-broken-by-this-that-their-choices-end-up-hurting-EVERYONE-ELSE) [thank HECK they're getting to deal with these issues differently in s13-- via proxies like mary stuck in her version of purgatory](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/thank-HECK-they%27re-getting-to-deal-with-these-issues-differently-in-s13---via-proxies-like-mary-stuck-in-her-version-of-purgatory) [instead of having to push through this as antagonists to one another like in s8](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/instead-of-having-to-push-through-this-as-antagonists-to-one-another-like-in-s8)


	189. Chapter 189

 

[Jan 12, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169625573040/12-its-super-hard-to-get-people-to-understand)

247 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 It's super hard to get people to understand why the mixtape is such a big deal-_- Many think it's the same as burning a CD (back when that was a thing:P) and i'm like "nah, my homie. CD burning consisted of dragging and dropping songs into a burn playlist. That's it. Mixtapes were WORK." That shit took TIME. You didn't just say "oh hey my friend might like this band, i think i'll put a mixtape together for him real quick." NOPE. I never knew anyone that put in that kind of effort for a pal.**

2/2 ESPECIALLY since Dean lives in the age of playlists and ipods and itunes and even CD burning is still around and MUCH quicker and less complicated than a damn mixtape. I know Dean is a dorky old man, but he’s not technologically stupid. He could’ve bought Cas an ipod and downloaded some songs or burned a CD. But no. He chose the pain in the ass, “i want to show you how much effort i’m willing to put in to please you” option with so many others available.  
  


I KNOW, RIGHT?!

I assume (but am not positive) that this was prompted by [my recent post about finding the mixtape Mr. Mittens made for me back in 1996](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169407555135/k-vichan-mittensmorgul-i-was-randomly-tidying)? If so, I should probably provide a lil bit of relevant background info on that. And if not, I should probably provide a lil bit of background meta on Dean… (link already posted as a chapter in this work)

I feel there are a few very important points to be made here about Dean specifically, and then I’ll tell you a little story about Mr. Mittens (because it’s relevant).

We’ve known about Dean’s shoebox collection of (apparently mostly copied) tapes since the pilot episode. Dean’s relationship with music, and with a specific genre of music– i.e. classic rock– has been one of his defining character traits through the entire series. We’ve been given a lot of context for just how important that shoebox of tapes must be to Dean.

We know he’s spent the vast majority of his life living out of the Impala. It’s not exactly a lifestyle conducive to amassing a collection of  _anything,_ let alone something as seemingly unimportant as a shoebox full of music. Sharing the car’s limited space with John and Sam for most of his life, and needing to keep essentially everything they own as well as all the tools of their trade as hunters in such a small space means that EVERYTHING they choose to hold on to has to be important, to have value, and to MEAN something to them.

This was in a time before entire music libraries could be contained on a phone (or even a laptop). And despite the radio being free and easily accessible anywhere in the country, Dean still bothered to keep his small music collection of songs that were important to him for whatever reason. Even if they were potentially copies-of-copies he’s made over the years whenever he had access to the equipment to even MAKE copies for himself.

And he’s carefully held on to them despite now having the technology to keep thousands of songs digitally on his phone.

One of the first things he installed in his room in the bunker (in 8.14, which I just watched again) was a collection of vinyl records. This was something IMPORTANT to him.  Not only that, it’s something that his life up to the point where they found the bunker and moved in  _was out of reach for Dean_. He’d settled on his tiny shoebox collection of copied tapes his entire life, and now that he had what seemed like a permanent space of his own, one of the first things he begins to amass is a technologically outdated collection of records. Because it was something he’d always WANTED but could never have before.

MUSIC IS IMPORTANT TO DEAN.

**Dean:**  Not bad? I haven’t had my own room – ever. I’m making this awesome. I got my kickass vinyl, I’ve got this killer mattress. Memory foam – it remembers me. And it’s clean, too. There’s no funky smell. There’s no creepy motel stains.

It’s literally the FIRST thing he mentions to Sam as what makes having his own room “awesome.” (and the album he points to is  _Led Zeppelin_ )

So when Dean went to the trouble to make a mixtape of all his “Top 13 Zepp Traxx” are we to assume he used his beat-to-hell-and-back collection of old tapes? Or that he used his vinyls and made a first gen copy for Cas?

For Cas, who’s out on the road the way Dean had been most of his life, with his shoebox of tapes that held so much value to Dean all those years. For an angel who probably doesn’t have a really strong grasp of the importance of sentimental possessions the way Dean does, but who DOES understand how important music has been in Dean’s life.

Dean made this tape (we are led to assume) when Cas goes out on the road alone in his hunt for Kelly. It’s a reminder of Dean (I mean his name’s written in all caps on the label and everything!). It’s a reminder of HOME (both Dean’s life before living out of the Impala the way Cas is now living out of his truck, AND the bunker-as-home to both of them now). And heck, it’s Zeppelin, with all the romantic and sexual connotations that inherently carries [because of the music itself](http://thevioletcaptain.tumblr.com/post/166667058088/so-hey-remember-that-time-when-we-found-out-that), but also because of the romantic subtext the show has layered over Led Zeppelin music for years. 

(I mean, just scroll through the 7+ pages of posts in my tag for this thing and suffer with me: <http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top%2013%20zepp%20traxx>)

So we have plenty of context for just how significant a gesture this was for Dean. If it was just about the music, or if it was just a casual gesture in any way, he could’ve bought Cas a spotify account, or a cheap MP3 player, or just showed Cas how to upload songs to his phone.  _It wasn’t just a shallow “here have some tunes” sort of gesture_. And it wasn’t just about expanding Cas’s pop culture database. Or even just sharing some of Dean’s favorite songs. There is nothing offhand or casual about this gesture, and anyone who believes that can eat my whole entire music collection, which exists in 3-D space and is SUBSTANTIAL.

So, now on to a bit of background info about Mr. Mittens and his relationship to music, which in a lot of ways is very Dean-like.

Throughout most of the 80′s, Mr. Mittens worked at a record store. Y’all remember those? Yeah, I know they’re making a comeback because my 17-year-old kid is amassing a collection of records now… but aside from recording the radio on crappy cassette tapes, if you wanted to own music of your own, you pretty much had to buy it at a record store. On records (and eventually on tapes, and then later on CD).

For reference, Mr. Mittens is old, even compared to me. In case you couldn’t tell by the fact that he worked for most of the 80′s… He’s had a long time to amass his music collection. He used to have a massive collection of records. And just thinking about this still makes me all verklempt… but it was too massive to bring with us when we moved into our first tiny apartment. He left it at his brother-in-law’s house, meticulously organized and safely stacked on end. SEVENTEEN FEET of records. I never even attempted to count them all, because it was easier to just measure them in feet. I mean, how many vinyl albums are there per linear foot? I mean, we’re talking well over a thousand albums. WELL over a thousand.

That wasn’t including the hundreds of CD’s he’d collected at that point, and in the 22 years since we’ve collected far more. But making a mixtape from that collection? Picking just 23 songs (as Mr. Mittens did on my tape) that not only expressed the emotions he wanted to, while still all sounding “good” as a collection of songs in their own right (and not just a jangly mishmosh of random tunes with no internal thematic cohesion), but that ALSO fit on a 90 minute cassette tape (accounting for the fact that each side of the tape is 45 minutes long, and he was attempting to fit that time constraint exactly, while also maintaining the musical flow across both sides of the tape)…

THAT IS NOT A CASUAL GESTURE. And THAT is the subtextual weight that a REAL mixtape carries, and ANYONE who has ever made one KNOWS this.

Regardless of the number of songs he had to choose from, all the rest of this still applies even to Dean’s Top 13 Zepp Traxx. Possibly even MORE so. Because this isn’t just about expressing a random collection of feelings through music. This is about sharing A PART OF DEAN’S ENTIRE LIFE HISTORY as expressed through his favorite band and his absolute most favorite songs, and all that associated meaning I described above,  _is as significant for Dean as handing over a piece of his own soul_.

In the years since Mr Mittens made my tape, I’ve ripped most of our CD collection to itunes. I have EIGHT THOUSAND songs on my phone. Including those 23 songs on my mixtape.

As for our record collection, a few months after we moved to our apartment, there was a flood that destroyed the vast majority of those records. And more than 20 years later, just thinking about it  _hurts_. It still feels as if a bit of our souls washed away with all that vinyl. Those 8000 songs on itunes still doesn’t include everything we lost in that flood.

So those precious 13 songs that Dean painstakingly chose and recorded on a tape that he subsequently gave to Cas, and then refused to accept back because  _it’s a gift, you keep those_ … If anyone is able to think of that as an insignificant or platonic or casual gesture, it has to be due to a lack of understanding of any of this ^^. Either they are very young, or they don’t have a very strong personal connection to music in general. And Dean? Is neither of those things.

[top 13 zepp traxx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top-13-zepp-traxx) [mittens history](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mittens-history) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[Jan 13, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169668158370/the-mixtape-thing-is-hard-for-me-to-see-as-a)

151 notes

**Anonymous asked: The mixtape thing is hard for me to see as a romantic gesture only- In Stranger Shings, Jonathan Bayers gave a Mixtape to his little brother, In Guardians of the Galaxy, Peter Quill got his Mixtape from his mother-So it seems that can be a family thing too?And we and the show, claim that Castiel is family- I would love it to be pure romantic love thing,but with many mixtapes showing up as a family affair it is hard**

Hi there! First of all, my intent behind this reply is one part mild exasperation, one part humorous jibing, and maybe two or three parts coffee (It took a lot of coffee to drown out the part that just wanted to delete this in a fit of less-than-mild exasperation, but I just want to assure you that this reply is in no way intended to be mean-spirited or condescending, and I hope you don’t take it that way).

For my second disclaimer, I’d like to make it known that I have seen neither of these things– GotG or Stranger Things– but because I don’t live under a rock, I at least know what they are. So if I say something about them that people who are actually familiar with these things would take issue with, just know that I am not prepared for a meta debate on either GotG or Stranger Things, but that no ill is intended in referencing them here.

(for my third disclaimer, I’d like to again state how sad I am that meta writers need to paste these sorts of disclaimers on everything, but such is the way things go…)

Righto! I think we can get down to business now. :)

There has already been a very well-written defense of the mixtape as romantic as used in GotG and GotG 2, and how it even STRENGTHENS the romantic reading of the mixtape scene in 12.19. But being me, the post somehow didn’t make it into the proper tag on my blog, and despite trying to search for it multiple different ways, I can’t seem to find it anywhere… >.>

(additional disclaimer that I’m in the middle of a Death Migraine, so apologies for any lack of due diligence in linking relevant references… searching for things hurts my brain right now)

The gist of it was that the mixtape contained songs that Peter Quill’s parents listened to together, so the tape’s ORIGINS were without question romantically coded. Despite the fact that the movie opens with Peter’s dying mother giving him the tape (this was what happened, right? I’m not mistaken here?) as a gift of love from mother to son, from what I understand about the sequel, PETER TURNS RIGHT AROUND AND USES THE TAPE TO WOO GAMORA. Restoring the “romantic” associations the tape began with, imbuing the mixtape with a sort of “legacy of love.”

Did I get all that right?

[This is EXACTLY what I was referring to in my post yesterday](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169625573040/12-its-super-hard-to-get-people-to-understand) as the show’s history of using Led Zeppelin songs in explicitly romantic situations.

In the OPENING SCENE of 12.01, as Dean’s establishing his identity for a very confused and suddenly-alive-after-33-years Mary, this is what he tells her:

**Dean:** Listen to me. Your name - your name is Mary Sandra Campbell, you were born December 5, 1954 to Samuel and Deanna Campbell. Your father, he bounced around a lot for work, and you bounced right along with him and you ended up in Lawrence, Kansas.  
 **Mary:**  How do you know all that?  
 **Dean:**  Dad told me. March 23, 1972 you walked out of a movie theater,  _Slaughterhouse-Five_ , you loved it. And you bumped into a big marine and knocked him on his ass. You were embarrassed and he laughed it off, said you could make it up to him with a cup of coffee. So you went to, uh, Mulroni’s, and you talked and he was cute, and he knew the words to every Zeppelin song, so when he asked you for your number you gave it to him even though you knew your dad would be pissed. That was the night that you met-  
 **Mary:**  John Winchester.  
 **Dean:**  August 19, 1975 you were married, in Reno, your idea. Few years later I came along, then Sammy.  
 **Mary:**  Then I burned. How long have I been gone?  
 **Dean:** Thirty-three years.

SHE GAVE JOHN WINCHESTER HER NUMBER BECAUSE HE KNEW ALL THE WORDS TO EVERY LED ZEPPELIN SONG. IT WAS A FLIRTATION. IT WAS THE FOUNDING STONE IN THEIR RELATIONSHIP.

LED ZEPPELIN LYRICS.

EXPLICITLY ROMANTIC.

Not only that, but we know that Dean has known this story his whole life. As if Mary (who had died long ago when he was a child, just like Peter Quill’s mother) had given him a reason to love these songs, too. For Dean they weren’t just ///romantic/// coded, but a link to that happier and more innocent time from his childhood, where his life was normal and his mom cut the crusts off his PBJ and gave him pie. From a time when Dean thought life could even be normal at all.

So, not solely  _romantic_ , but absolutely  _romanticized_. Or idealized, at least. These were memories he clung to like a koala as his life fell to pieces after Mary died. He remembered that old life as only a child could, through rose-tinted soft-focus, reinforced by John’s vague and infrequent recounting of his memories of Mary.

(remember in 3.09, how 9-year-old Sam complained that they NEVER talked about mom? and how upset Dean became when Sam probed him for more information? And even in the pilot episode Sam said something about never being able to get mom back, and Dean threw him against the bridge pillar and told him to NEVER say stuff like that about Mary… I mean, it’s HEAVILY implied that talking about her AT ALL was something that just didn’t happen, but when it did, it was the sort of memory Dean referenced in his speech in 12.01… those were the “important details” he’d memorized… and maybe that entire description of their first meeting hadn’t even been John’s words at all, but things Dean had been carrying in his own mind since he was a child– something Mary might’ve told him herself before she died, since that bit of Dean’s story  _is related back to Mary in Mary’s own pov_.)

The show has also lampshaded the use of Led Zeppelin as a sexual overture, in 2.02:

**Jo:**  You know, I thought you were gonna toss me some cheap pickup line. Most hunters come through that door think they can get in my pants with some… pizza, a six pack, and side one of Zeppelin IV.

Jo had been expecting Dean to hit on her, and it’s implied all the way up through her appearance as a ghost in 7.04 that she’d WANTED him to hit on her, that she’d had a crush on him or was attracted to him… and the only reason she turned him down in 5.10 was because she didn’t just want the “last night on earth” fling with him… This was 100% a come-on.

And Dean’s two favorite songs? Ramble On (which yes, on the surface is a LotR reference, but the deeper message is the search for a lover), and Traveling Riverside Blues (which is 100% about sex… I mean… It’s just pure lust). Put together, they’re like the peak of Love and Lust. And being Dean’s two top favorite songs? I’d bet both of them are on that mixtape.

So back to the point with the GotG reference. It not only does not invalidate Dean’s gift of the tape to Cas as a romantic gesture, but REINFORCES the romantic nature of the gift.

These songs that united Peter’s parents, which his mom left to him after she died, and eventually he uses to romance someone he’s in love with…

If Peter had turned around and given the mixtape to another relative, or to a friend he had no romantic interest in, then I would’ve given you this example. But that is explicitly NOT what happened. Sorry. When taken in the larger context of the entire story around it, saying the mixtape there was only about a mother’s love for her son is being deliberately obtuse. Context matters, and taking that one link in Peter’s mixtape chain out of the larger interconnected story is cherry picking.

So that leaves us with ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE (which I won’t argue with because I have not seen Stranger Things and therefore have zero context with which to debate what you stated about it) OUT OF THE ENTIRE CANON OF HUMAN STORYTELLING in which a mixtape is used as a platonic or familial gift with no romantic coding whatsoever.

I’m going to go ahead and call the use of the mixtape in Stranger Things THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE. This was the subversion of the standard trope.

I asked Mr. Mittens and kidperson (who HAVE watched Stranger Things) what the context of the mixtape was, just so I could have a general idea. Apparently it was given to a younger brother by an older brother as a sort of “This is important music that you need to know to be cool” sort of gift. Or maybe “music that is important to me.” Apparently the older brother was hospitalized for something at some point? So there was also this generalized feeling of “taking care of my little brother” aspect to it? I’m just spitballing on the like three things I know about ST, so no actual meta value is being ascribed to these statements.

But this is what really bothers me about your question, because this is something that’s been discussed since 12.19 aired, and I would like to put forth this argument:

The VAST MAJORITY of references to the gift of a mixtape in popular culture ARE EXPLICITLY ROMANTICALLY OR SEXUALLY CODED. The OVERWHELMING number of references over DECADES of storytelling simply cannot be invalidated by a SINGLE use of the mixtape in a non-romantic way.

PLUS: CONTEXT MATTERS. You can’t just say, “Dean gave Cas a mixtape, but because one time on one show someone gave a mixtape to his brother, so therefore these situations could be identical, and it could be a gesture of brotherly camaraderie and not specifically romantic.” THAT IS NOT A VALID ARGUMENT WHEN TAKEN IN CONTEXT.

The entire scene in 12.19 was framed, shot, and edited with multiple other romantically coded tropes. The absolute QUIET that settled over the scene (no background music, the only sounds those of their voices, speaking earnestly and emotionally to one another), the fact that we didn’t see Dean GIVE the tape TO CAS, but only Cas attempting to return the tape to Dean because his recent actions HURT DEAN. Dean was ANGRY that Cas had gone missing for a time and had ignored his calls, and had stormed off to his room in a huff. Cas’s response to this was to offer to RETURN the tape to Dean (now explicitly coded as a gift of love, because he worried that Dean may have withdrawn whatever feelings that had inspired the gift in the first place).

The fact that Dean can’t even LOOK at Cas because of his hurt, and yet picks up the tape and hands it back to Cas (in a shot that frames JUST THEIR HANDS PASSING THE TAPE like THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT PLS PAY ATTENTION PLS), and tells him, “It’s a gift. You keep those.”

I can’t believe people need me to spell out all the subtext in that one line, but here it is:

At this moment, the fact that the gift object itself is a mixtape is practically irrelevant, because THAT LINE ITSELF carries about nine miles of romantic subtext. In this context, the mixtape takes on the same narrative weight as Arwen’s necklace in Lord of the Rings. It’s a symbol of her immortality as an elf, AND a symbol for her heart. AND SHE OFFERS IT TO ARAGORN, AND THEN HE TRIES TO GIVE IT BACK BECAUSE HE FEELS HE DOES NOT DESERVE IT, BECAUSE HE’S ABOUT TO LEAVE HER TO GO ON HIS MISSION TO SAVE THE WORLD.

Sound familiar?

This familiarity IS NOT AN ACCIDENT. IT IS A VERY LONG-LIVED ROMANTIC TROPE.

The fact that the Macguffin in this case happens to be a Led Zeppelin mixtape in 12.19 only ADDS to the inherently romantically coded GESTURE of what happened in that whole entire scene, compounded by A DECADE of other romantically coded subtext between Dean and Cas.

*screams into the void and the apologizes to the void and tucks it back under its blanket*

There’s also the fact that we have no idea when, or under what circumstances, Dean gave that tape to Cas in the first place. We can only speculate that it may have happened after the events of 12.12, but honestly it could’ve been any time in the preceding ten years. For argument’s sake, let’s suppose it was a relatively recent gift, considering the circumstances under which Cas attempted to return it– immediately after being confronted with his unexplained absence and Dean’s anger over it, and immediately PRIOR to his PLANNED BETRAYAL, his theft of the Colt, and his abandonment of Dean yet again… The circumstances under which Cas felt he might not ///deserve/// this specific token of Dean’s feelings for him involved  _betrayal_  of those feelings by virtue of his  _absence_  and  _abandonment_  of Dean (at least, he understood this much of what that tape seemed to represent to Dean).

*another disclaimer: I’ve been writing this for like four hours now, and my Death Migraine has progressed to the point where I need to not look at things for a while. I could keep going here, but I’m failing at basic human things like “being able to sit upright” and “not throwing up every time I open my eyes” so I’m gonna stop typing now*

*no wait, one more thing because I can type with my eyes closed*

Isn’t it amazing that we’ve now evolved to the point where instead of combing through the subtext to find romantically coded things in their interactions, folks are now actively scrambling to find ways to explain away the blatantly in-your-face romantically coded text? I mean… what have we come to here? When the more OBVIOUS and far more defensible read of the scene is the romantic read? And yet still there’s this scramble to suggest it could be non-romantic…

And do you know how these sorts of arguments all sound to me? I’ll let the Simpsons explain it for me:

https://youtu.be/MWvevkE0kAI

[top 13 zepp traxx](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/top-13-zepp-traxx) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [apologies that this sort of goes incoherent at points](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/apologies-that-this-sort-of-goes-incoherent-at-points) [imma go lie down in a dark room for a while now and pray for death](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/imma-go-lie-down-in-a-dark-room-for-a-while-now-and-pray-for-death) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	190. Chapter 190

[Jan 22, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170007168685/do-you-have-any-thoughts-on-the-12x12-diner-scene)

32 notes

**Anonymous asked: do you have any thoughts on the 12x12 diner scene? why do you think dean wants cas to hook up with a waitress?**

I don’t think he does…

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159997593405/you-ever-think-its-weird-how-dean-doesnt-really> (already a chapter in this work)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/159992866010/floralmotif-elizabethrobertajones> (i.e. more of my screeching about how important understanding WHOSE POV we are seeing this from really is… because a lot of people do not seem to understand that Dean and Cas’s gross leering faces were NOT what Dean and Cas “saw,” but what MARY ASSUMED of them) (the post this reply is based on is already a chapter in this work)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157533088315/so-in-12x12-dean-calls-cas-devastatingly> (my portion of this reply is pasted below, as an addendum to *1)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157531695790/i-cant-remember-does-dean-know-about-the-angel> (pasted below as *1)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157374802535/destiel-moments-in-spn-12x12> (not mine to post)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157360971970/so-i-wanna-talk-about-the-i-love-you-moment> (already posted as a chapter in this work)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157347616145/reservoir-dogs-the-power-of-its-homoerotic> (not mine to post)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157344096455/the-waitress-scene> (not mine to post)

and for a bit of fun…

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157504054245/picture-if-you-will-team-free-will-on-a-hunt> (not mine to post)

* * *

I should probably have a Dean vs Waitresses in s12 tag… especially after 12.18 and [the BS cafe](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-BS-cafe)…

 

[spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [spn 12.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.18) [the BS cafe](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-BS-cafe) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

*1

Feb 21, 2017

87 notes

**Anonymous asked: I can't remember. Does Dean know about the angel laying with a human taboo, or did the audience only hear about that?**

Hi there. I was curious about this too, and the transcript isn’t posted yet (ack!), so I finally had a chance to rewatch 12.10 to check for myself.

From the flashback scenes, I was under the impression that they occurred while Cas (and Lily) were telling their respective stories, so Sam and Dean may not have gotten a word-for-word exact rendering of the scenes, but the implication is that the “stories” we’re witnessing contained the information we were shown in flashback. Hence the “storytelling flashback” device.

So I started rewatching the entire episode, just because, and OH MY GOSH, can I hijack this reply for a few minutes to flail about the differences between Cas in 12.12 and certain direct parallels to Ishim in 12.10? I’m only about 1/3 into the episode so far, but so far these things have stood out to me so strongly that they may as well have been written in highlighter, or neon lights like the big glowing HOT COFFEE sign in the diner above Ishim’s head.

  1. Ishim accuses Cas of having no home and no family (and in 12.12 Cas finally believes that he truly DOES)
  2. Ishim receives a wound to his side (in the exact same spot Cas is wounded in 12.12)
  3. The wounds were delivered by someone who had just wanted to be left alone (Lily had just wanted to live safely with her daughter, Ramiel had just wanted to hang out and go fishing)
  4. Like Cas in 12.12, Ishim was unable to heal his own wound (he holds his hand up to it and extends his fingers like he’s trying, and like Cas said, “something’s wrong” and he was unable to heal himself.
  5. Both wounds were healed by an outside force, and after Ishim’s healed, he comments (and demonstrates with one-arm push-ups) that he hasn’t felt so powerful in a millennium, and Cas was visibly weakened. After Cas was healed, are we also to also assume he feels more powerful than he has in ages?
  6. Lily has a similar wound, which she heals herself by burning up a piece of her own soul.
  7. Cas beginning to come to terms with the fact that Sam and Dean are willing to go to the same reckless lengths for HIM that he’s willing to go to for THEM. That comes to fruition in 12.12. And then Dean says without hesitation that Cas is their family (remember squeeing over that three weeks ago? ‘Cause I do. :P)
  8. We essentially get TWO versions of this story (Ishim’s POV– the “story” he’d told Cas all those years ago in order to make him believe they were on a “righteous mission” from Heaven in killing May– and then Lily’s story, which still lacked ONE element of truth. All these years, she’d never understood WHY Ishim was able to convince the rest of his flight that May needed to die. She was SHOCKED when Sam revealed they believed her child was a nephilim. But that’s when we finally understood the full truth. How Lily began to understand that ISHIM ALONE was truly responsible for what had happened to her The rest of the angels were lied to). Only after hearing both are Sam and Dean able to observe the truth. In 12.12, we also see multiple “outside pov’s), after which Sam and Dean are finally able to “see the truth.” They’re still missing the key piece of the story… WHY MARY WAS SENT THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE.
  9. Lily’s shock upon Cas saving HER life and killing Ishim instead. Sort of like everyone’s shock on Crowley saving Cas’s life by potentially putting himself at a disadvantage…
  10. (and 12.12 ended with the still-unresolved fact of WHY they raided Ramiel’s house in the first place… the larger betrayal is still afoot.)



So I should probably get back to answering your actual question here, yes? >.>

Castiel delivers the line to Akobel about the “most sacred oath,” He says, “You have lain with a human and you fathered a nephilim. You have broken our most sacred oath, and the penalty is death.” After Ishim enters the house and we hear Lily cry out and May scream, we return to Cas in the present telling this entire tale to Sam and Dean.

Cas says that they completed a mission, and Dean replies, shaking his head, “Some mission.”

We are left to believe that Cas related ALL THE INFORMATION THAT WE WITNESSED in that flashback in order for Sam and Dean to understand WHY going to Earth to murder a random little girl was the business of Heaven, you know? At a time when their presence on Earth was something they seemed to avoid at all costs. 

Would Cas have phrased the “death sentence speech” the same way while retelling the story? Quoting the bit about the most sacred oath?

Would he have mentioned that Akobel had to die because “He’d lain with a human and fathered a nephilim,” or would that just be an unremarked upon footnote to the story?

The fact that we’re shown Cas telling them both the beginning AND the end of the story is a visual “frame”bookending everything we see in the flashback. It’s a plot device that typically implies, “The story the character A is telling to the other characters is conveying the information you are seeing dramatized.”

As a plot device, we’re left to assume that EVERYONE WHO HEARD THE STORY knows all the information that was conveyed to us via the flashback.

So yeah, It’s safe to assume Dean knows. We’re SUPPOSED to assume that Dean knows.

 

[spn 12.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.10) [spn 12.12](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.12) [this is how stories work](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-how-stories-work) [parallels](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/parallels) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

ADDENDUM:

reblobbed because I just made a post, after a rewatch of 12.10, wherein I postulated that Dean DID know about the oath.

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/157531695790/i-cant-remember-does-dean-know-about-the-angel>

Because ~storytelling structure~. 

But the oath isn’t JUST about laying with humans. The words Cas used within the flashback (which we were given to assume contained all the information that Cas related to Sam and Dean by telling the story in the first place):

“You have lain with a human and you fathered a nephilim. You have broken our most sacred oath, and the penalty is death.” 

If anything, I think it’s the oath itself that’s up for debate. Is the laying with the human part of their taboo, or just the fathering a nephilim bit? Does the fact that Dean was teasing Cas in that diner only because he KNOWS that Cas would never follow through with some random waitress hookup, and this is just Dean’s idea of “fun?”

However you want to read it, it’s equally interesting both ways… :D

 

 


	191. Chapter 191

[Jan 27, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170177194110/12-i-think-i-missed-something-could-you-help)

27 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 - I think I missed something, could you help me? I’ve seen a lot of discussion about how Dean was more contented and positive in this episode and people attributing this to Cas being back. I’ve forgotten where Dean and Sam think Cas is right now. Some episodes ago, they believed they were talking to him on the phone but of course we know it’s Asmodeus. No mention of Cas since, right?**

2/2 - Could this be a sign of growth for Dean that he trusts Cas is fine and is not worrying about his absence? Or does it seem a bit out of character that he’s not wanting to see Cas in person or talk more on the phone especially after all he’s been through after Cas’ death? Or maybe he’s just happy believing Cas is out there somewhere in the world, presumably safe? I guess I’m confused why Dean hasn’t really mentioned Cas lately.  
  


Hi hi! Yeah, there’s been a lot of speculation over this, after Dean was instantly rattled by Cas’s out of character phone call that had him tracing Cas’s GPS signal and showing up at the bar (presumably within MINUTES of Asmodeus and his goons showing up and capturing Lucifer and Cas– the light on the bar’s sign flickered out as the Impala pulled up outside). After the fight with Asmodeus’s demons, and after Ketch is unmasked (and then makes good his escape), Dean has this call with who he believes is Cas:

**ASMODEUS** (impersonating Cas): Hello, Dean.  
 **DEAN** : Cas? Hey. Are you okay? We– we– we tried to track you down, but you were gone. We ran into a bunch of demons. What's– what’s happening?  
 **ASMODEUS** : I’m sorry. I’m fine. I tried to call and warn you, but couldn’t get a signal.  
 **DEAN** : Okay, well, what’s going on?  
 **ASMODEUS** : I’m following a very interesting lead. I’ll fill you in when I know more. See you soon, Dean. 

“Cas” doesn’t give him any more info on what this “interesting lead” is, but as Dean said to Doug in 13.11, if you care about someone, you have to trust them. And boy howdy, I think he’s having a hard time enforcing that in himself, the longer he hasn’t seen Cas.

Going by the [estimated timeline of events of s13 so far](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/169559196090/rough-s13-timeline), adding on two days for the events of 13.10, and less than two weeks between the events of 13.10 and 13.11 (based on Doug’s comment to Dean about Donna’s “family reunion” in Sioux Falls having been “a few weeks ago,” probably extrapolating backward to when Donna LEFT for Sioux Falls, so including of the events of 13.10 in that “few weeks” from Doug’s pov), it’s probably been somewhere between two and a half to three weeks since 13.07, and the last time Dean SAW Cas in person.

I assume that phone call at the end of 13.07 would’ve held him for like… a day or two before Dean would’ve been waiting for answers on what that “interesting lead” might be. We know that “Cas” had apparently communicated with SAM at least once after this, but Dean apparently has not… and possibly not because he wasn’t TRYING to, but… 

less than 12 hours after the end of 12.07, Sam and Dean get the call from Barthamus and are lured into working for the demon under super sketchy circumstances with a high stakes prize on the line (the spell that could help them locate Jack). It’s what they’d all been looking for all along. Then almost immediately after THOSE events, comes the call from Jody letting them know of a potential Jack Sighting. And they’re off to figure out what Jack’s up to.

At the beginning of 13.09, Sam tells Dean that he heard from Cas, who was supposedly working a lead on Jack in Tucson, immediately before Jody calls with a rather concrete lead on Jack in North Dakota (which is nowhere near Tucson…)

We should assume that Sam and Dean attempted to contact Cas to let him know about the lead THEY were following, since there isn’t much else to do on a 10 hour car ride (or however long that was). After that, things happen kind of fast… They find Kaia, and Jack, and tangle with angels and are fleeing for their lives and whoopsie get tossed into an alternate universe for two days.

I can guarantee that they at least called Cas to deliver the terrible news that Jack had disappeared, probably into the War World, and they have no idea how to reach him now that Kaia is “dead.”

So it’s probably safe to assume that Asmodeus also knows Jack’s current theoretical whereabouts, and we know he also knows about the potential threat of the War World’s Michael. And he’s probably scheming up some sort of nonsense about all of this. Which doesn’t have anything to do with your question, but since Asmodeus is currently pretending to be Cas on the phone to the Winchesters, it’s good to keep a running tally of Things He Knows That He Probably Shouldn’t Know… okay back to the question. :P

What we should all be concerned about is the implication that they’ve likely been back from the Bad Place for over a week now, and Sam’s just moping, and Dean’s been carrying on carrying on. Having reported Jack’s fate to Cas, it seems difficult to imagine that Cas wouldn’t have returned to the bunker by now unless he had some other potential “lead” he could suggest he hunt down for trying to reach Jack in the AU. It’s really difficult to imagine Dean would just accept Cas had gone missing in a situation like that, you know? Even if Dean is currently trying to hold things together while Sam’s been struggling, I don’t think he would’ve been holding himself together as well as he has unless he had at least some assurance that Cas was okay, since they’ve built up Cas’s return as The Thing That Made Dean Okay Again.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how 13.12 handles all of this, because 13.11 was focused so much more on Sam’s current spiral into the dumps and 13.12 looks like it’s going to put Dean through some rough times instead. :P

But essentially, yes. I think he’s really TRYING to trust Cas, like he advised Doug to trust Donna. But after the truth came out between Donna and Doug, Doug left. I think Dean’s gonna see the truth about what’s happened to Cas very soon…

[spn 13.11](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.11) [spn 13.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.07) [spn 13.08](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.08) [spn 13.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.09) [spn 13.10](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.10) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN)[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 


	192. Chapter 192

[Jan 27, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170207521315/sorry-if-this-is-old-news-but-im-re-watching)

74 notes

**Anonymous asked: Sorry if this is old news, but i'm re-watching some episodes especially from this season and I gotta say, I think i've/we've all been wrong this whole time regarding "Sammy knows." Because if there's one thing the first few eps of this season made very clear, it's that Sam doesn't have a damn clue, which has really thrown me as far as what i'd previously believed! Or he at least doesn't have a clue in regards to the depth and complexity of Dean and Cas's relationship. He knows they're bonded.**

(Sammy knows ask continued) He knows they share a bond that Sam doesn’t have with Cas, or even with Dean himself, though of course it’s a very different rapport and emotion involved. This may be off, but in a way, i kinda see Sam as the GA stand-in/avatar in the show? Like Sam’s figuring it out as things become more clear along with us and the GA and even Dean. Nothing made that more clear than the “you may be able to forget about that, but i can’t” argument scene.  
  


OH GOSH. This was a huge topic of conversation early in the season, and it really came to a head during 13.06. That whole scene where they’re unpacking their suits and hanging them up in the motel closet (shot from the pov of INSIDE THE CLOSET) where Sam questions Dean’s sudden 180 from suicidally depressed like the day before to absolutely giddy over cowboys, when NOTHING Sam had tried to cheer him up had even REMOTELY seemed to make Dean feel any better literally one day before this… And Dean credits it all to the fact that Cas was alive…

And the fact that Cas returning from the Empty was enough to also change his entire opinion of Jack, since Jack had been the one to poke Cas awake…

While Sam was happy Cas was alive again, it really seemed to unsettle him more than give him reason to be overjoyed, you know? Sam and Dean’s grief had already been demonstrated to be about two entirely separate things all season long.

I don’t know if you’re the same anon who also sent the next message in my inbox, but it’s thematically similar, so I’m gonna throw it on here anyway. I hope that’s okay…

> Lol you know what i love? That if you don’t believe Dean is in love with Cas, Sam must’ve looked like the biggest jerk that ever lived in those first several eps:P I mean the dissonance and difference of emotional reaction between the two of them regarding Cas’s death was astoundingly significant. So either something’s up or Sam just didn’t give as much of a shit about Cas’s death as Dean. But Sam “you say thank you, you say goodbye, you hope they’re somewhere better” Winchester is NOT a jerk.

NO HE MOST CERTAINLY is NOT!

He was the one at the end of 13.01 pleading with Dean not to burn Cas, because there might be another way to save him. He held out hope longer than Dean did that Cas would come back, because he always did before.

When Dean lost faith in that, he lost faith in everything. Sam continued to hold out hope for Mary because as long as they had Jack– who’d ripped open that hole to the other world– there was a chance that they could find her and save her. Dean… didn’t. Because his faith was already dead.

Dean had lived his entire life with the knowledge and memory of Mary’s original death. In a way it was probably EASIER for him to accept that she was dead again. For Sam, this was A New Feeling of Loss. He’d never known her before, never had any real memories of her, and right at the point where he was beginning to know her as a person, she was taken from him.

The fact that HER loss hit him so much harder than Cas’s death isn’t a statement against Sam’s feelings for Cas, but exposition on how DIFFERENT Dean’s feelings are for Cas.

Heck we’ve written tons about this since the beginning of s13… I wouldn’t even know where to begin adding links to meta on the subject. D:

[spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [sam sympathizes and dean empathizes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sam-sympathizes-and-dean-empathizes) [which is just my tag for 'these are two different people who react differently to stuff'](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/which-is-just-my-tag-for-%27these-are-two-different-people-who-react-differently-to-stuff%27) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [there's probably a lot in that tag on this subject already...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/there%27s-probably-a-lot-in-that-tag-on-this-subject-already...) [spn s13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[Jan 27, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/170212277935/its-kinda-funny-that-the-sam-doesnt-know-thing)

64 notes

**Anonymous asked: It’s kinda funny that the “Sam doesn’t know” thing has been bothering me since 13.06 in a weird way... I’m perfectly fine with him knowing or not knowing, but since then whenever I read “Sam knows and Sam ships it” fics I have this “BUT HE DOESN’T” voice in my head... I know I should just shake it off and enjoy the fics like I always did but I just can’t now it feels really strange...**

Heck, that reminds me of the time that Sam was baffled that Dean wanted to continue listening to “Shake It Off,” like he expected Dean to change the station :P

Sam is in a weird sort of Schrodinger’s Cat situation here, I think. I think he knows  _something_ , but not the whole of it. He knows Dean and Cas have always had a different (and closer) relationship than he’s had with Cas. But… Dean’s like that with everyone, right? (at least, from Sam’s pov it might seem like that)

Considering this question has been raised repeatedly this season, in ever escalating ways, we’ve been asked to consider just how much Sam really does understand about the nature and intensity of Dean’s feelings for Cas. After all, the conversation leading up to Dean literally screaming his feelings in Sam’s face had been brought on by Sam’s inability to understand why Dean wasn’t 100% on board with the “Save Jack From Himself” plan that Sam was on. Because Sam believed that Dean’s desire to save people the way he’d always stepped up to save Sam was just some inherent part of who Dean was as a person, and NOT because of Dean’s specific and personal feelings toward Sam himself.

Which raises the MASSIVE question of why Dean was so devastated by Cas’s death when Sam, who explicitly ALSO cared about Cas in a purely brotherly fashion, was not. Cas’s death didn’t leave Sam hopeless and unable to function. Not because Sam is a bad person, but “hopeless and unable to function” is just not the reaction of most people to losing a friend– even a close friend.

There was a LOT of discussion at the time around the fact that Dean Is Technically Sam’s Parent, a role he did not ask for nor want, but that he took on himself because John ordered him to. It’s still one of the painful roots of their codependency now, the fact that Sam still thinks their relationship is one of brothers, when so many of their interactions read as parental/child.

Dean at least acknowledged his parental role in 12.22, but throughout the early part of the season, Sam was attempting to encourage Dean to “adopt” Jack in what Sam had even lampshaded as a “brother” role (when telling the tattoo artist that Jack was their brother, and the tattoo was a family thing), when what he actually was asking Dean to be was a  _parent_. Sam tried out this role himself in 13.03, and he came off like a rather authoritarian parent toward Jack. He later apologized for it, but I’m not entirely sure he realized that that’s what he was doing there.

What does this have to do with how much Sam may or may not know about Dean’s feelings for Cas? Well, how much does ANY child know about their parents’ relationships? There are clearly things that Sam knows about Dean’s personal life just from the fact that they essentially grew up in a car together. It’s hard to have an entirely private personal life when you share a small motel room and the back seat of a car for eighteen years.

But I’d argue that would make them both all the more protective of what little personal space they could eke out for themselves under those circumstances, as well.

But Sam’s not dumb, you know? He’s got eyes, and he can’t possibly have missed the fact that Dean’s relationship with Cas is just not like any other relationship Dean’s ever had with ANYONE. I think he’s just not clear on what exactly that might mean.

Now in canon, that’s great because it gives the audience someone to identify with as Sam comes to a better understanding of it all. And in fic? I’m entirely unopposed to “Sam knows” being used as a trope, or “Sam is shocked because he had no idea” being used as a trope. In some ways I am very easy to please when it comes to fanfic.

(in other ways I am the pickiest jerk ever to walk the face of the earth, but the “Sam Knows” thing doesn’t bother me in the least. He’s Schrodinger’s Moose. Either way works for me. :P)

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [breaking the codependency](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/breaking-the-codependency) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	193. Chapter 193

[Feb 21, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171140116295/i-was-watching-918-this-morning-and-meanwhile)

73 notes

I was watching 9.18 this morning, and meanwhile I’m sitting here thinking about stories and their meanings, and how we engage with them in ways both healthy and unhealthy… THANKS METATRON!

I was gonna postulate two distinct reactions I’ve noticed: People who go in to any piece of media with an open mind and engage with what actually pans out in the story, and people who go in with a checklist of impossible expectations and are therefore never gonna be satisfied with what the thing actually *is*.

Like people who are *irate* over a particular theme not being addressed “properly” in canon, like Cas’s depression. Or Dean’s ptsd, or Cas never having expressed his grievances to Chuck, or whatever thing people just absolutely get hung up on, expecting it to happen on screen and NEVER being able to just let go of the fact that all these things are still being addressed, just not the way they HOPED they would be.

That the show is never going to have an episode where characters just flat-out TALK about all this stuff, because that’s not how storytelling WORKS. This isn’t journalism, you know? They’re not going to synopsize all the characters’ long lists of issues and tick them all off point by point with actual conversations about these things. It’s just… it would be  _awful_ storytelling.

(heyo… "If the scene is about what the scene is about, you’re in deep shit.“)

Much as people want satisfaction on these things, they’re unwilling to let go when it’s demonstrated that the characters HAVE let these things go (like the apologies between Dean and Cas after 11.03…) Folks got SO hung up on them having an explicit conversation that there are STILL people absolutely convinced that the scene was written and filmed, and then cut.

(I mean, I was one of those people who were hung up on it, but by 11.07 or so I realized I had unrealistic expectations based on what was ACTUALLY HAPPENING ON SCREEN, and then let go of my toxic obsession and insistence that the issue clearly hadn’t been resolved just because it didn’t pan out with a specific conversation I felt the show “owed” me… because I am an adult with critical thinking skills and understand how fiction works as compared to how these things are best dealt with in real life, and can accept that fictional characters are not real people, and that we also don’t have a 24/7 portal through which to view the characters’ entire existence, and can safely assume if they begin acting as if their past disagreement has been resolved, then we’re being informed as an audience to accept that their past disagreement has been resolved)

It’s frustrating sometimes, but this is how stories work.

I often wonder just how genre savvy people who complain about things like the glacial pace of destiel actually are. Supernatural was and still is a HORROR narrative. It’s not and never has been (and hopefully never WILL be) a romcom. We don’t WANT it to become a romcom.

Yes, they borrow tropes and themes from romantic stories, but they will never be the focus of Supernatural, and they will never play out the same way they would in a romcom.

I’ve explained this to people, and they still insist that it would be easy to include that sort of storyline anyway, but that would change what the show *is* and people hate to hear that.

THIS is what it means when the showrunners say they’re not writing it that way, or when the actors say they’re not acting it that way. They’re not denying the ship, nor the romantic themes and tropes,  _they’re denying that they’re writing a romcom_.

BECAUSE THEY’RE STILL WRITING A HORROR.

[spn 9.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.18) [spn s13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [this is how stories work](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-how-stories-work)[MMMoRDOR](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/MMMoRDOR) [s13 meta rewatch](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/s13-meta-rewatch) [but from the previous go-around like five months ago...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-from-the-previous-go-around-like-five-months-ago...)[mittens wanky drafts dump](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/mittens-wanky-drafts-dump)


	194. Chapter 194

[Feb 23, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171202694930/i-love-how-deans-mr-big-bad-scary-and-talks-a)

77 notes

**Anonymous asked: I love how Dean's Mr. Big Bad Scary and talks a big game with everyone but Cas who gets to do whatever the fuck he wants.**

Well… I mean, it goes both ways, you know?

And living through Lizbob’s Dean and Cas are In Love series, which is currently plowing through the end of s6, is like a well of infinite suffering over it… :P

Dean can be Mr. Big Bad Scary, but so can Cas. But around each other… they don’t have to be, you know? They’ve both tried to play that card with each other, going all the way back to 4.01. I mean, hello Barn Scene. Dean’s plan to confront the Terrifying Thing that pulled him out of Hell was basically throw everything in the book at it and kill it. Cas strolls in, boops Bobby to sleep, and just talks calmly with Dean. Then in 4.02 Cas gives Dean the “I pulled you out of Hell, I can throw you back in” line.

It’s not like they just *always were like this* with each other. It’s taken years to get there. Years of trusting in each other, that trust breaking, and being re-earned again.

Heck I always think of those scenes where Dean stops Cas in his tracks with nothing more than a hand on his shoulder (when Cas was ready to kill Naomi in 8.23, or Gadreel in 9.10). But Cas also has that sort of power with Dean, you know? He defers to Dean’s advice so often because he knows it’s good, or at least not terrible. 

But Dean knows he doesn’t have to put up that front with Cas anymore. Cas isn’t an antagonist anymore. Since Cas has come back in s13, it’s more true than ever on CAS’S side, as well. It really is Team Free Will now. Cas is getting closer and closer to understanding that he really doesn’t have to face crap alone in order to protect Dean (and Sam) from it. They’re truly better as a team.

I saw a post the other day about Dean and Sam, and how Dean doesn’t make a big deal about “gaps” in his knowledge or skills because Sam balances those gaps out. As long as they’re working as a team, they each have their complementary roles to play. They’re stronger together than they would be individually. And Cas, as part of the family, is learning this too. He doesn’t have to go out and get wins all on his own. He doesn’t have to be the savior and protector all by himself, you know?

and it’s taken a heck of a lot to get them to this point.


	195. Chapter 195

 

 

[Feb 25, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171291310000/do-you-think-dean-realizes-hes-in-love-with-cas)

148 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think Dean realizes he's in love with Cas? I think he realized it a long time ago but has shoved it down as something that can't happen. I think Cas took longer to realize he's in love with Dean and maybe still hasn't to a certain extent, but I think they're both mainly in the "this is there but it's not relevant" stage in their thinking with it.**

Oh gosh, I have so many fluctuating feelings on all of this… and have for years.

Like, back at the end of s7 and in Purgatory in s8, I think Dean really did come to accept that he had very deep feelings for Cas. I mean, dude stayed  _in Purgatory for a freaking year_  when he had a direct way home as soon as he teamed up with Benny. They could’ve gone directly to the portal at that point, you know? But nooooo, he had to go on his Where’s The Angel Killing Spree first, and refused to leave without Cas.

 _FOR A YEAR_.

So. If that’s not at least SOME kinda love…

Now, about being IN LOVE with Cas, I think that’s taken longer for him to realize. You can tell just from looking at him during the beer run scene in 11.23 that telling Cas he’s their “brother” just didn’t sit right with him, but before he got to elaborate (which it honestly seemed like he was working himself up to), the phone rang and Sam called them back with an update on the whole “the sun is dying and the universe is imploding” problem that sorta took precedence.

But after early s13, and comparing the… let’s call it the  _quality of Dean’s grief_ … compare that against what he went through beginning in 7.01 when he’d believed he’d lost Cas to “godstiel,” and then watched Cas die, resurrect, and then die again in the span of 10 minutes. And then suffered the next 15 episodes believing Cas was never coming back, until he did, and didn’t even remember Dean.

S7  _hurts_ , but hooboy, Dean’s very specific grief about Cas in 13.01-13.05 is  _excruciating_. Paired with Dean’s comments about how getting Cas back was a pretty damn big win, and explained his 24 hour turnaround from literally resigning himself to death and being tossed into the Empty with Billie to the absolute GLEE he experienced about like… everything in 13.06. It’s just… If Dean doesn’t recognize that the only real explanation for this is LOVE for Cas, then he’s a more dire case than I ever expected.

The fact they continue to “drag it out” between them is pretty much what I’ve been explaining for years as this Scheherazade phenomenon. This is how they’ve always told this story, and it’s how they always will. They will ALWAYS be interrupted, right up until the end of the story, when they’ll finally get to finish telling it.

I know this is a terrible description, but the story of Dean and Cas is using literally the same narrative structure as 1001 Nights, right down to the bumbling sibling being the reason the story is being told at all, to that sibling constantly (intentionally!) interrupting the story so Scheherazade will literally survive to continue the story the next night. Rinse and repeat for 1001 nights, until love confessions and happily-ever-afters.

Because as long as Supernatural continues, there WILL be “bigger problems” they have to deal with, or feel obligated to put their personal needs/wants/desires on hold for. There will be things that keep them apart, or threaten to keep them apart. And they both still have some other unanswered questions about themselves that the story needs to deal with before any of that happens anyway (particularly Cas).

I mean, Cas HAS essentially made his stance on the Winchesters being his family, his cause, his “side.” He’s acknowledged that he HAS chosen them over Heaven. But I don’t think he’s really accepted the fact that the Winchesters (yes, both of them) would rather have him around REGARDLESS of how useful he is. He’s not a tool, you know? He’s family, and loved and wanted and needed just because he’s CAS. That’s one thing that must be dealt with.

Dean’s got to deal with TELLING Cas this in a way Cas can’t misinterpret. The whole “I’m not mad, I’m worried” thing in 12.10 was great, but only began to scratch the surface here.

There’s obviously a few other issues they’d need to address before anything more happened, but I think these are big ones.

 

 

[Feb 25, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171291721920/do-you-think-cas-has-gotten-what-he-needs-from)

46 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think Cas has gotten what he needs from Dean as far as non-generalized affirmation (generalized being "you're our brother" "we need you" etc)? I don't think Cas has realized the depth of Dean's grief for him. He wasn't there to see Dean more broken than he's ever been. And i wonder if we're ever gonna come back to that? If they're ever gonna have a moment where Dean addresses Cas in terms of what Cas means to Dean specifically, cause i think we're missing that piece.**

Heck I wish I saw this before I hit the publish button on the other ask I just replied to :P

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171291310000/do-you-think-dean-realizes-hes-in-love-with-cas>

I made a comment toward the end of that post that Dean being undeniably clear about wanting Cas to stay because HE is wanted and needed, not for what he can DO for them, but because he’s CAS.

But yeah, I think we’re gonna be missing that piece for a long time. I mean, if the entirety of the Dean and Cas Narrative was a jigsaw puzzle, that would have to be one of the final pieces to go in.

I really hope Cas overheard Dean telling Sam that getting him back was a “pretty damn big win” in 13.06. But later in that episode:

 **DEAN** : [sighs] Yeah. Look, just act like you’re from  _Tombstone_ , okay?  
 **CASTIEL** : The city?  
 **DEAN** : The movie. With Kurt Russell? I made you watch it.  
 **CASTIEL** : Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The one with the guns and tuberculosis. [in a deep cowboy voice] “I’m your Huckleberry.”  
 **DEAN** : Yeah, exactly. Well, it’s good to have you back, Cas. All right, follow my lead. We’ll fit right in. 

I know that scene is weightier with gifs, when you can SEE the emotions on Dean’s face. But… Cas could also see all those emotions, the relief, the happiness. And it was tied DIRECTLY to some nonsense about Cas having watched Tombstone with Dean that one time, and Cas quoting back the line at Dean.

Like… THIS is all I need to do to make you happy?!

I really do hope they’re both getting closer to understanding it. :D


	196. Chapter 196

[Feb 26, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171322578830/hi-there-just-had-a-similar-convo-with-a-few)

34 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi there! Just had a similar convo with a few friends and just wanted to get your personal views: what do you consider canon? While I believe in the subtexual story we are being told and will stand by my analysis of their relationship no matter what, I personally do not count something as canon unless it is confirmed as canon on screen in the traditional sense (kiss, verbal confession, etc) or word of god. I'm this way especially with LGBT romances, as there are too few canon ones.**

Hi there! This is one of those eternal sorts of debates. I’ve seen it going on regarding destiel since I joined the fandom.

I remember a HUGE debate on “word of god” passing for “canon” after Korrasami was declared canon by word of god. And for me? that doesn’t fly.

To me, word of god as canon is as much of a cop out as JKR telling us all Dumbledore was gay, then having the opportunity to SHOW us this, and completely failing to do so. That’s… just not how any of this works. If it’s not on screen… well… Let’s just say I would absolutely NOT be satisfied with that at this point in the story.

As to things that ARE commonly accepted as canon, let’s attempt a little exercise here. Answer this question:

How would you describe the relationship (in terms of canon) between Jesse and Cesar in 11.19?

*Jeopardy think music plays*

If you answered #HunterHusbands, congrats!

Thing is,  _it is never explicitly stated in canon that they were married_.

It’s ENTIRELY subtext.

Is it canon? I think you’d have to be an idiot to suggest that they WEREN’T a married couple, based on a single episode of exposition on it.

I’ve written a lot about those two, and on subtext in general, and how it’s often MORE IMPORTANT to a story than actual words spoken or actions carried out. Take this, for example:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167910424170/elizabethrobertajones-im-sorry-for-the-call-out>

re: 13.01, but relevant (I believe) to the entire structure of s13:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166374949350/12-i-hope-this-makes-some-semblance-of-sense>

have an excellent quote (from “if the scene is about what the scene is about, you’re in deep shit” guy)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165780561625/we-apply-our-literary-talent-with-vividness-and>

oh, right… here’s that actual quote:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165779908855/an-old-hollywood-expression-goes-if-the-scene-is>

a post, and then the perfect reaction to that post:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165633573355/i-really-find-it-truly-baffling-when-people-say> (this is mine, and is posted below. the rest above are not mine to post)

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165634765975/k-vichan-i>

And I will continue saying this until I no longer get ask messages wondering if subtext is “canon” or not.

Do I want them to actually make verbal confessions? Well, yeah. Would a kiss be the sort of undeniable canon most people wouldn’t be able to explain away? Possibly, but there will also always be people who will label even the most in-your-face anvilicious text as “fanservice” and dismiss it.

Do I count the overwhelming mountain of subtext as “canon?” Well, yeah… I personally do. Subtext is literally a part of canon, regardless of how people choose to interpret it. It’s still there.

Is that subtext “good enough” for me? Eh… I’d be really disappointed personally if they don’t get some sort of obvious and textual happy ending.

If everything ended tomorrow, and Dabb announced that yes, Dean and Cas should be read as a romantic couple, whose endgame was to be together, would that be enough for me? HELL NO. In fact, that would probably piss me off 100x more than just leaving everything in the subtext, you know? Like… you could’ve given us SOMETHING in text, but just putting out a press release after the fact? Yeah, sorry. That doesn’t cut it anymore.

So yes, for me what’s in the subtext IS REAL. It is canon. For me it’s not a question of whether they’ll “make it canon” at this point, it’s a question of whether they’ll bring it entirely from the subtext into text.

And since my tag for them is “the scheherazade of supernatural” it’s kinda clear I think they’re already progressing down that road to text. It’s just a very long, very slow road. :P

 

 

Sep 22, 2017

99 notes

**Anonymous asked: I really find it truly baffling when people say we're crazy for seeing subtext. I like it's not even up for debate, it's a non-deniable writing tool. But it's also a part of every day life and interactions. I just think people don't realize it doesn't have to be deep or extreme, examples are all around you and you do it every day in order to communicate.**

If subtext wasn’t a valid form of conveying information, there would be no such thing as humor. People wouldn’t tell each other jokes, because nobody would understand them nor find them funny.

Subtext isn’t some imaginary or made up or fake part of a story. It’s the “between the lines” stuff that writers DON’T have to say in words because they believe their audience is going to pick up on it and understand it anyway.

We all do it every single day, in real life. We’re walking through the grocery store and see a harried looking woman with three small children picking up a large sheet cake, a bunch of balloons and a large quantity of snack foods. We might assume that she’s hosting a party, possibly for one of the small children. A closer look at the balloons, one of which says HAPPY BIRTHDAY!, then a glance at three children who seem to be about the same age and resemble one another to a startling degree, as well as a glance at the cake decorated with the words “Happy Birthday John, Mike, and Larry” and you’d probably feel pretty safe saying something to the little boys like, “Happy birthday guys! I hope you have a great time at your party!” and then offer some words of support and congrats to their mom.

ALL OF THAT WAS INFO YOU GLEANED FROM READING SUBTEXTUAL CUES. HUMAN BRAINS DO THIS 24/7.

And writers RELY on this fact.

They rely on our intrinsic understanding of human behavior, our ability to connect some of the dots in a story, to be able to “read between the lines.” In television and movies, they further rely on the actors’ skill to convey additional subtextual cues through body language and facial expressions and tone of voice. They rely on the director interpreting lines and scenes and capturing the right tone and feel of every shot. They rely on lighting and costuming and editors and vfx artists and musicians to bolster the feeling they’re trying to convey in every scene.

All of this adds layers to the subtext that human brains are capable of understanding and interpreting, because we’ve been exposed to this sort of storytelling and information-gathering our entire lives.

Even right now, I can hear someone in the kitchen. I hear the faucet running and silverware clattering. I can assume that Mr. Mittens is in there doing dishes. I don’t have to walk into the kitchen and see that for myself to prove it. I have more than enough subtextual evidence that I feel confident in wagering money that he’s washing the dishes. And yep, there’s the dishwasher drawer clanking too hard. If someone else was here, they’d likely draw the same conclusion. Unless they were being deliberately obtuse.

That’s how subtext works. The dishwashing currently happening in my kitchen isn’t any less valid because I’m merely inferring it from an overwhelming amount of indirect evidence, you know? Those dishes are still getting washed even if Mr. Mittens isn’t announcing his every move with words, narrating the entire event clearly to make it real. :P

 

 

and in reply to this:

Sep 22, 2017

15 notes

[k-vichan](https://k-vichan.tumblr.com/) replied to [I really find it truly baffling when people say…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/165633573355/i-really-find-it-truly-baffling-when-people-say)

> I AM SQUIRTING MORE SOAP INTO THE SPONGE NOW I AM SLIDING THE SPONGE IN A COUNTER-CLOCKWISE DIRECTION ON THE DINNER PLATE I SHALL NOW SLIDE THE SPONGE IN THE CLOCKWISE DIRECTION I AM NOW RINSING THE PLATE I AM PLACING IT IN THE DRYING RACK I AM PICKING UP A DIRTY SPOON

(yes I know these are supposed to be read from bottom to top but regardless, in any order, I love this response) :D

Thing is, this is text, yet… without any subtextual confirmation of this, you could be flat out lying. I mean, were you  _really_  doing all these things as you narrated them to me? Or, like Dean reminds us, sometimes we shouldn’t trust what characters are saying

Sometimes, it’s actually the subtext that lets us know the truth.

It’s either the music of doom or the guilty looks or the shiftiness or evasiveness that belie the words…

Because I think you were actually just typing, and if I’d been in YOUR kitchen, I think I would’ve just heard a bunch of clickity clackity typing sounds… CHECK AND MATE.


	197. Chapter 197

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with commentary from other meta writers as noted

[Feb 28, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171401894940/hey-mittens-i-am-still-screaming-about-gabriel)

166 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hey Mittens. I am still screaming about Gabriel, like everybody else here, but I am also thinking a lot about the DeanCas scenes... I can't help but think that there was a lot of passive aggressiveness in them, coming (exclusively?) from Cas. I feel like Cas is shutting Dean a little bit out now that he is in this new character arc, as if he was saying: "I can't do this forever, I cannot hopelessly pin after someone til the end of time". Which doesn't mean that his feeling have changed 1/?**

[neven-ebrez](http://neven-ebrez.tumblr.com/post/171401288093/hey-mittens-i-am-still-screaming-about-gabriel):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171393328600/hey-mittens-i-am-still-screaming-about-gabriel):
>
>> [bluestar86](http://bluestar86.tumblr.com/post/171391570398/hey-mittens-i-am-still-screaming-about-gabriel):
>>
>>> [andimeantittosting](http://andimeantittosting.tumblr.com/post/171387746333/hey-mittens-i-am-still-screaming-about-gabriel):
>>>
>>>> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171385303295/hey-mittens-i-am-still-screaming-about-gabriel):
>>>>
>>>>> 2/? But it’s something I would totally expect of a person that decided to take care of themselves, not be okay with other people taking them for granted or being content with whatever they manage to get from an important relationship. And it’s like Dean and Cas swapped places, in a sense, because right now it looks to me like Dean is the one trying to get to Cas’ good graces, talk about feelings, and be there, while Cas acts all business, shuts him down and refuses to communicate emotions.  
> 3/? For example, him defending his decision to meet with Lucifer definitely looked like a knee-jerk reaction, like just needed to argue with Dean. It’s like every issue he had with Dean over the years is becoming very obvious to him, and years of suppressed anger and annoyance and hurt are coming bubbling up to the surface. It’s a bit sad to watch, but atthe same time I think that it’s a good thing. Conflicts and anger are healthy things in on themselves and part of every relationship. And there  
> 4/4 definitely are some suppressed negative emotions and conflicts that need addressing. I am sorry for this long message, truly, and I hope that I made sense and didn’t say something completely insensible. I was kind of interesting in what you thought about this dynamic. So far I have only seen people gushing about the DeanCas scenes. Thank you for your blog and the time you invest in it :)  
>   
> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Hi there, anon! First off, I’m gonna apologize for not replying sooner, but this came to my inbox like… a day before I left on an 8 day road trip, and then by the time I got back it was buried under a bunch of newer messages in my inbox. I’m finally getting caught up on Real Life™ enough to go inbox spelunking, so there’s gonna be some random old stuff as I dig through it all. :D
>>>>> 
>>>>> I personally didn’t see Cas as “shutting Dean out,” just because of all the other circumstances surrounding this situation– Cas having been captured, locked up by Asmodeus for several weeks, all the while impersonating Cas over the phone for Dean and Sam to minimize their suspicion– in addition to Sam and Dean having had some of their own difficulties such as being flung into the Bad Place, finding Jack whose Top Priority was telling Sam and Dean about his vision of Mary being tortured in the War World… then being called on by Donna and THEN the whole thing with the Plum Witches and Rowena…
>>>>> 
>>>>> Going all the way back to 13.07, we  _know_  that Cas had tried to contact Dean to tell him about Lucifer (and AU Michael who may be a credible threat, as well as the fact that AU Michael was the one who had Mary captive…). We saw how that ended. Cas was prevented from giving Dean all the details (by Lucifer snatching his phone), and Dean and Sam arrived minutes too late to the bar to meet up with Cas.
>>>>> 
>>>>> (then several weeks of Asmodeus interfering and misdirecting the Winchesters while keeping Cas and Luci prisoner)
>>>>> 
>>>>> **SAM** They have an angel tablet?   
>  **CAS** Yes. And the archangel, Michael, again the apocalypse world version, wants to use the spell to invade and conquer our world. That’s why I met with Lucifer.   
>  **DEAN** So..You met …Cas, I specifically told you not to do anything stupid.   
>  **CAS** Well, he was weak and given the context of our imminent annihilation it didn’t seem stupid. Lucifer wanted to help fight Michael.   
>  **SAM** Oh yeah Lucifer wanted to help, sure.   
>  **CAS** If he were lying I’d have known it. He was, he was scared. But Asmodeus showed up before we could finish our conversation and when we finally managed to escape Lucifer did try to kill me.   
>  **DEAN** Oh so much for helping.   
>  **SAM** He say anything about our mom?   
>  **CAS** She’s alive. That’s all I know. I’m sorry.
>>>>> 
>>>>> and then when Dean and Cas finally have a brief moment alone, before they’re interrupted yet again (because that’s Their Thing– Moosus Interruptus)
>>>>> 
>>>>> **CAS** It’s a long shot at best.   
>  **DEAN** Yeah well most of what we do are long shots, you get used to it. Cas, I’m sorry. All that time you were with Asmodeus, I should have known it wasn’t you.  
>  **CAS** No, he’s a shapeshifter, besides I was the one who got myself captured.  
>  **DEAN** Yeah, but if Sam and I knew you know we would have   
>  **CAS** Yeah I know you would have tried another long shot. I’m fine, Dean.   
>  **DEAN** You sure about that?   
>  **CAS** Right now all that matters is getting Jack and your mother out of that place. Kay? Look I promised Kelly that I would protect her son. I intend to keep that promise.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Circumstances once again prevented them from actually getting to the end of their conversation, but they DID both at least raise the subjects, and they did both come to mutual understanding within the limited time they had to talk privately.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Because this is how they are telling the story. It’s always been how they tell the story. The characters  _literally cannot_ reach the “end” of that conversation until the end of the overall story. They must be stopped by the narrative, over and over and over again.
>>>>> 
>>>>> (seriously, how many times do I have to refer to the story of Scheherazade and the 1001 Nights? This is the trope they’re using. Scheherazade literally could not finish a story before the end, until the entire narrative had reached its end, or else her life would’ve been forfeit. She literally would’ve been KILLED come morning, and it was only the promise of hearing the end of the story that spared her until the next night. THEY WILL NOT LET DEAN AND CAS FINISH THIS CONVERSATION BEFORE THE END. THAT IS A VERY GOOD THING! FOR THE STORY AS A WHOLE!)
>>>>> 
>>>>> We know that in addition to multiverse-toppling concerns in the main mytharc, ongoing attempts to find a way to rescue both Mary and Jack from the War World, worry about AU!Michael finding a way to our universe first and basically Apocalyps-ing us the way he did to his own world, as well as Asmodeus stirring up his own trouble, etc. etc. etc… Dean and Cas both ALSO have their own personal issues that they’re both still dealing with.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Sure Cas had a big Self-Revelatory moment in the Empty, metaphorically fighting back against his depression to the point that since his return he seems imbued with fresh purpose and will. A lot of his self-confidence is back, and instead of wallowing in feelings of worthlessness over failing to contact Dean to warn him about Lucifer and the rest, over having been captured and imprisoned, over having failed… he’s demonstrating that he’s moving forward now that he did finally escape and return to the Winchesters. He’s still got issues he must address, and he IS addressing them. It’s not all down to one moment in the narrative, though. It’s a process, and it’s still ongoing.
>>>>> 
>>>>> And after watching Dean mourn Cas’s death for the first five episodes, the depths of hopelessness he sunk to, and the complete turnaround toward hope he made after Cas returned, it’s still a process for him, as well. Yes, the entirety of his thoughts and feelings haven’t been addressed yet, because that would make for awful storytelling. Everything isn’t going to be dealt with at once, because the story is still unfolding and ongoing.
>>>>> 
>>>>> There’s still 10 more episodes in s13 to go, so even taking s13 as a single self-contained story, it would be like reading a novel and having all the characters reach their personal epiphany in the middle of the book. That’s just not how stories work.
>>>>> 
>>>>> So in that sense, yeah… I’m gonna gush about the fact that Dean and Cas at least reached the same page over the fact that they DO have as-yet-unresolved things they need to address with one another. It’s just that in the interest of the larger plot they’ve both essentially tabled (see what I did there? they were standing at the war room table, where conflicts tend to be hashed out on this show, and yes there is mountains of meta on exactly the sorts of conversations that happen at that table rather than the kitchen table or the library tables…) their emotional personal stuff for later.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I’m 100% okay with this, because as we saw in the rest of the episode, Dean and Cas were both textually and visually “aligned” with one another. From their verbal interactions to the numerous times they were visually shown just ~standing together~ in the background, all the subtext suggests that they’re on the same page, that they’ve reached and understanding, and that they’re as good with one another as the narrative will currently allow.
>>>>> 
>>>>> The other thing these numerous scenes remind us of is what we’ve been saying all season long (and even back in s12). The show has been continually reminding us of the fact that  _things happen offscreen_. Important things. Things like Dean giving Cas a mixtape, Dean and Cas just hanging out together watching movies, Dean and Cas talking on the phone and texting one another.
>>>>> 
>>>>> _We, the audience, do not see all the conversations they have, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t having those conversations_.
>>>>> 
>>>>> (screencaps from [HotN](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.homeofthenutty.com%2Fsupernatural%2Fscreencaps%2Fthumbnails.php%3Falbum%3D299%26page%3D10&t=ODlkNTJkYzgzZGY2MzkwYjdmNzI3YzU2MzdkMWFlNzQ3ZDcyMmIzNiw5V1dkaWVhSw%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F171401894940%2Fhey-mittens-i-am-still-screaming-about-gabriel&m=1))
>>>>> 
>>>>> Just… hanging out together in the background:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Basically agreeing with each other at every turn, like the “We’re boned.” “Epically.” moment, but also agreeing completely on how to deal with Ketch…
>>>>> 
>>>>> That one shot where they were LITERALLY REFLECTED, standing together, for no narrative purpose other than to show that they’re still standing shoulder to shoulder… I mean…
>>>>> 
>>>>> Just hanging in the background looking at each other, as they do…
>>>>> 
>>>>> Every moment like this might not be a huge breakthrough revelatory moment, but it’s all  _progress_.
>>>>> 
>>>>> So yeah, I’m gonna keep gushing over it all. I find it’s a lot more personally enjoyable than being mad about not skipping directly to the end of the story, you know?
>>>> 
>>>> I just don’t  _get_  the idea that Cas has hidden resentment against Dean that he needs to address. I mean, obviously they have communication issues they need to deal with, but this idea that Cas has a list of grievances to air against Dean, particularly that he takes him for granted, (and some people actively wanting this to happen) is one I’ve seen since at least season 10 and it baffles me, because it’s just not what I see in Cas’s behaviour at all. I also don’t get the idea that Dean has somehow been any worse to Cas, to the degree that he needs to be chewed out for it, than Cas has been to him. The poor communication is mutual.
>>>> 
>>>> Now, Cas seemingly doesn’t know just how badly off Dean was when he was dead, and I do think that’s an important piece of information he’s missing, but he does know Dean cares. He straight up says, “Yeah I know you would have tried another long shot,” if Dean had known he was being held captive. 
>>>> 
>>>> What I see in that apology scene, and what I’ve seen in season 13 as a whole, is that while his encounter with the Empty did seem to do a lot for lifting the fog of depression he was under, Cas is still thinking of his worth in terms of what he can do. It’s just that, without the depression getting in the way, he  _can_  do things effectively now. He’s no longer feeling worthless (because useless), but he’s still positioning himself as a tool.
>>>> 
>>>> So in that apology scene, Dean is trying to say, “I am asking about your wellbeing, because I care about you as a person,” and Cas is responding, “My wellbeing is only relevant if it interferes with my ability to do my job. Focus on the mission, Dean.” There’s this look that Dean gets on his face when Cas says, “Right now all that matters is getting Jack and your mother out of that place. Kay? Look I promised Kelly that I would protect her son. I intend to keep that promise,” that just about killed me.
>>>> 
>>>> So while I don’t think Cas realizes what  _type_  of care Dean has for him, or that his feelings are returned, and maybe that hurts a little, that’s not at all where I see the source of any tension between them coming from in the beginning of the episode. It’s not “I resent Dean because he doesn’t show he cares about me,” it’s the opposite - “While it’s nice that Dean cares about me, it’s less important than the task at hand.” And with that out of the way, they can both be on the same page for the rest of the episode.
>>> 
>>> Ah this is all so great to read especially the DeanCas stuff from 13x13 (the framing of them in the background shots was excellent). What I just wanted to emphasise here is Cas’s feelings on the matter, because I totally agree with this excellent addition by [@andimeantittosting](https://tmblr.co/m7O68NdbGASeDnXmzgcrtxw) that Cas’s biggest issue throughout pretty much his entire character arc is that he is ALWAYS mission focused. 
>>> 
>>> I don’t think that Cas thinks that Dean doesn’t care for him, because Dean HAS made that clear in the past that he does - perhaps not as clearly as we would want him too, Cas certainly doesn’t know Dean returns his love in any way other than the platonic, brotherly love that Dean has repeated to him since season 11, but Cas knows that Dean cares for him. 
>>> 
>>> Cas’s issue has always been that the mission comes first. “the mission is everything” he said once to Hannah in a way that could have been interpreted as having Destiel leanings, but even face value it says a hell of a lot about Cas. Cas is forever sacrificing his own well-being and his own desires for the “mission”, whatever the mission may be. He also continuously diverts any questions about his well-being to the mission, as he does here in 13x13, as he did in 9x09 as well when he stole another angels grace so he would “be ready” for the mission ahead. 
>>> 
>>> This is why the communication always seems to fail. Because Cas always refuses to actually answer truthfully about how he is actually  _feeling._ That is what made that conversation in 12x19 so memorable. Cas opened up. Which is really  **rare**. As [@mittensmorgul](https://tmblr.co/mH08bFF21ewTCayiwIXZEOg) states above, the conversation can never truly finish, and it won’t finish until the end, because it runs hand in hand with Cas always having another mission to hold his focus. The biggest question will be just what Cas will do once he no longer has a mission to distract him?
>>> 
>>> If we are lucky, hopefully Dean.
>> 
>> I remember meta going on and on about how fantastic Jack could potentially be for Cas specifically BECAUSE he was a “self-chosen duty” for Cas, via his promise to Kelly. Like his DUTY wouldn’t be Dean-focused (since it already was clear that his duty was severed from Heaven years ago). It frees Cas up from being duty-bound to Dean, which makes all his interactions with Dean on a more equal footing.
>> 
>> Either they’re working together side by side toward a common goal (as in 13.13), or else Cas can CHOOSE Dean over duty, since Dean is no longer conflated with his sense of duty.
>> 
>> THIS IS A LONG-TERM EXCELLENT DEVELOPMENT!
>> 
>> It makes staying by Dean’s side the OPTION instead of the OBLIGATION. 
> 
> The “Cas has grievances to air against Dean” discussion comes from the narrative mirrors, not necessarily something Cas has said. For a while now the Destiel mirrors have been in the flavor of unrequited love (or sibling mirrors) because of how Cas feels Dean feels towards things between them. Cas feels their love is not the same, fears it to be this way, according to the Empty. And yes, absolutely, Cas is always mission based because honestly I think it scares him to not have a mission and for him to have to stop and really look at where he is and where he fears he is specifically with Dean. And I think for Cas, Dean showing any care (because Cas interprets their feelings differently) towards him honestly just hurts him. Cas doesn’t really want to hear Dean say these things, ask these things, show this love. I honestly don’t think Cas can bear to hear he’s like a brother one more time. Every time Dean asks Cas about how he is Cas immediately applies a painful platonic filter to it, so he immediately deflects. “The mission” for Cas is as much a priority as it is a shield to his heart these days.
> 
> Him fighting his way out of the Empty, thinking Dean did something to wake him, only to find Dean didn’t do anything at all must have hurt Cas’ feelings quite a bit. And to find Jack most likely brought him back, well, that’s a safe and easy comfort compared to how scary it must be for Cas to emotionally face Dean. Looking towards Dean for the same comfort is scary for Cas because he’s been wrong so damn many times and he’s been trying to make up things to Dean for so long. And while courtesy of 13x13, the whole season’s mirrors can be retrofitted into Gabriel/Asmodeus situational mirrors, 13x04’s mirrors still illustrated Cas’ feelings towards Dean quite well I’d like to say.
> 
> I also think Dean feels quite defeated here. Cas won’t open up. This season is very much about trauma, the things we can move past and the things we can’t. For Cas, this is the choice he’s already made and for the possibility he’s afraid to face. He feels he’s given everything he has and it’s not been enough, that it will never be enough. And Dean, well, he feels he’ll never be able to save Cas like Cas has saved him. Cas is currently in a Hell of his own making, built of assumptions, silence, and miles of space that separate him from Dean. Cas is brave enough to fight his way back to Dean (from one Hell to another, from the Empty to Earth) but he’s not brave enough to truly face his decision about how he really feels about Dean. From this point, the show has framed Dean as the one who must fill the silence and separate the distance. Because Cas? Well, he’s standing still. 

[spn 13.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.13) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [i can see this too but it's not so much a 'cas has grievances he's not airing'](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-can-see-this-too-but-it%27s-not-so-much-a-%27cas-has-grievances-he%27s-not-airing%27) [but more like cas doesn't get WHY Jack called out and poked him awake in the empty... which was the immediate direct result of](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-more-like-cas-doesn%27t-get-WHY-Jack-called-out-and-poked-him-awake-in-the-empty...-which-was-the-immediate-direct-result-of) [DEAN's anguish and the fact he blamed jack for it (at least in part)](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/DEAN%27s-anguish-and-the-fact-he-blamed-jack-for-it-%28at-least-in-part%29) [so yeah that really needs to be made clear to cas](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/so-yeah-that-really-needs-to-be-made-clear-to-cas) [but if we're all sitting around waiting for there to be a revelatory moment i think we're likely to feel let down](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-if-we%27re-all-sitting-around-waiting-for-there-to-be-a-revelatory-moment-i-think-we%27re-likely-to-feel-let-down) [just like we never saw cas tell dean about what Naomi did to him or that he watched dean rake leaves...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/just-like-we-never-saw-cas-tell-dean-about-what-Naomi-did-to-him-or-that-he-watched-dean-rake-leaves...) [did he tell dean about those things? will he tell dean more about the empty?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/did-he-tell-dean-about-those-things%3F-will-he-tell-dean-more-about-the-empty%3F) [will dean confess how broken and devastated he was after cas died?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/will-dean-confess-how-broken-and-devastated-he-was-after-cas-died%3F) [will he confess to cas that he was so hopeless that he'd literally taken his own life?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/will-he-confess-to-cas-that-he-was-so-hopeless-that-he%27d-literally-taken-his-own-life%3F) [and that he was fully ready for billie to toss him out into the empty without even making a show of bargaining for his own life?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-that-he-was-fully-ready-for-billie-to-toss-him-out-into-the-empty-without-even-making-a-show-of-bargaining-for-his-own-life%3F) [or just how BIG a statement it was when he told sam that getting cas back was a pretty damn big win?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/or-just-how-BIG-a-statement-it-was-when-he-told-sam-that-getting-cas-back-was-a-pretty-damn-big-win%3F) [because i don't think it's possible for cas to not at least overheard that statement in that small motel room you know?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-i-don%27t-think-it%27s-possible-for-cas-to-not-at-least-overheard-that-statement-in-that-small-motel-room-you-know%3F) [i don't think cas is as in the dark about dean's feelings as that... but he also knows for whatever reason he thinks he's getting all dean](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-don%27t-think-cas-is-as-in-the-dark-about-dean%27s-feelings-as-that...-but-he-also-knows-for-whatever-reason-he-thinks-he%27s-getting-all-dean) [is willing to give him... at least for now while there's still a job to do...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/is-willing-to-give-him...-at-least-for-now-while-there%27s-still-a-job-to-do...)


	198. Chapter 198

[Mar 1, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171420910995/really-appreciated-your-considered-discussion-on)

23 notes

**Anonymous asked: Really appreciated your considered discussion on where Dean & Cas stand at this point. I was thinking along the same lines, circumstances keep preventing them from having a deeper on screen conversation. I agree that there just doesn’t seem to be an opportune moment to directly deal with personal issues. I remain hopeful the writers will move in that direction too. Thanks as always!**

Oh gosh, yeah. Thanks. :)

This is why I love Lizbob’s [Dean and Cas Are In Love](https://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-and-cas-are-in-love/chrono) series. It’s an excellent reminder of just how consistent and how gradual their story has been for nearly  _ten years_. They’ve put so much into their personal arcs with one another that, at this point, it would be an absolute tragedy for them to just toss all that out and have them come to some sort of immediate resolution.

I mean it’s the sort of drawn-out, ridiculously over-the-top sort of long-term angst and suffering that I detest in fanfic for the exact reason that I get more than enough of it in canon. :P

(what can I say, I’m weird like that)

(fanfic is my pressure release valve for all this Scheherazade nonsense in canon JUST LET THEM BE HAPPY FOR FIVE MINUTES DAMMIT)

But yeah, in canon, SCHEHERAZADE ME BABY.

[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [i think my personal long term goal as a meta writer is to get everyone to read 1001 Nights :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-think-my-personal-long-term-goal-as-a-meta-writer-is-to-get-everyone-to-read-1001-Nights-%3AP) [and not just the excerpted stories most people are familiar with](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-not-just-the-excerpted-stories-most-people-are-familiar-with) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	199. Chapter 199

[Mar 1, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171434289830/i-dont-know-if-its-because-i-have-my)

54 notes

**Anonymous asked: I don’t know if it’s because I have my shipper-goggles on (I think that’s the term?) but did you feel some tension during the Dean/Cas scenes ? Not like angry or sexual tension, but more so like something was missing, like something else needed to be said. I’m trying to look at what’s being put on my screen, but right now all I can think about is what’s NOT on the screen. I guess my question is do you think these gaps (and unresolved tension I guess) were left hanging in the air for a reason?**

Yeah, for the exact reason you’re feeling right now. :P

(sorry!)

Negative Space in storytelling is what makes the experience interactive. Things unsaid, unanswered questions that prompt the audience to ask themselves what the answer should be.

What broke the connection? *audience yells YOU DID YOU BIG DUMMY*

Same here… we’re supposed to see BOTH SIDES of what’s being said, and reference that against what each of them have said when the other wasn’t around, and play Fill In The Blank.

And then we’re supposed to scream internally about it for a week. :P

 

 

[Mar 2, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171456976430/man-dean-was-really-working-the-blue-steel-this-ep)

30 notes

**Anonymous asked: Man dean was really working the blue steel this ep XD**

He’s still modeling. still putting on a certain type of mask…

I mean, it’s entertaining, but heck I think my favorite Dean faces in the whole episode were where he was joking (or trying to joke) with Cas about the loincloths. :P

There’s a meta goldmine in that entire scene about communication, the fact these two dudes were having an argument in ancient Canaanite about proper word choice that actually focused on the fact they were interrupting each other instead…

all the while Dean has no idea what they’re saying because he doesn’t speak Ancient Canaanite, but Cas does. Cas knows what they’re arguing about– WORDS. And using the RIGHT ones, and conflict arising out of ignoring what’s important and derailing the primary objective by making the conversation about something else…

(which is what both Dean and Cas have been doing all season, since Cas’s return)

And it’s what Dean’s doing by commenting repeatedly on the loincloths. How the Scary Dudes are dressed isn’t really on point for the fact that they summoned them to kill them, and they don’t even realize yet that they’ve been deceived and sent on a pointless mission that they’re dangerously underequipped to handle.

Gog and Magog were expecting to be victorious against entire armies, but they didn’t count on Dean turning their own weapons against them. Dean and Cas were expecting to be easily successful with their angel blades, but they weren’t expecting Gog and Magog to have weapons that trumped angel blades. OR for them to be practically impervious to anything else because they weren’t humans…

They were a diversion– of words and intent and expectations. But working together they succeeded despite themselves.

They  _really_  need to check their words. They each think they’re using the correct words here, while NEITHER of them is. Both of them need to realize how their words are being interpreted by the other, and then find clearer, unmistakable words for what they’re actually trying to say.

But that’s terrifying, to both of them. They’re getting closer, though, and that’s definitely encouraging. :)

 

[spn 13.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.14) [spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[Mar 2, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171457277720/dont-ya-think-now-its-looking-like-dean-is-kinda)

69 notes

**Anonymous asked: Don’t ya think now it’s looking like Dean is kinda trying to have a meaningful conversation w Cas and keeps pushing Dean away? And Dean is kinda like C’mon it’s already Family Reunion.**

I think they’re both being numbskulls, frankly. They’re both trying to couch their feelings in “safe” terminology, you know?

Dean keeps asking Cas about how he’s doing…

BUT!

Dean ALSO keeps using the “we need you” when it comes to Cas…

WHICH!

Cas then interprets as “right… I’m //////useful////// because I have soldier abilities and a history of being strategically useful, not because I’m wanted or loved or anything like that…”

AND!

Then Cas packs away his feelings and couches HIS feelings in “yes I have a PURPOSE which is to uphold my promise to Kelly and protect Jack and now to find Lucifer and stop this interdimensional war, because I know how to stop wars, and this is how I can be useful”

AND!

Dean hears that, hears Cas completely deflect his OWN feelings into this “Duty” bullshit, and thinks that Cas NEEDS or WANTS that duty and that that’s all that’s important TO CAS. Which just makes the situation WORSE because then Dean doubles down, offering to support Cas with his “mission.”

And they’re BOTH doing it.

It’s not one or the other, but BOTH of them.

Aah, the irony of Cas saying he doesn’t get words wrong.

Hell if he hasn’t gotten Dean’s “we need you” wrong…

Dean means: “We wanted you here. Basically my soul’s screaming for you was what drove Jack’s power to go haywire and wake you up in the empty”

Cas hears: You’re useful to us, Cas. You’re a great asset to our fight.

Dean means: I care about you and I’m concerned about YOU and how you are FEELING.

Cas hears: Are we going to be able to keep this mission on track?

So yeah, the miscommunication goes both ways here.

 

 

[Mar 3, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171498518575/its-kind-of-like-a-loop-lol-cas-needs-to-hear)

92 notes

**Anonymous asked: It's kind of like a loop lol. Cas needs to hear that Dean wants him--not just NEEDS him--in order to in turn say the same to Dean, and Dean needs a reason to believe Cas actually wants to hear those things from him before he says it. So both need to happen but they won't happen without the other happening first:P Unless something happens to make one of them spit it out, and just based on their characters and where the narrative seems to be going, i'm placing my bets on Dean cracking first.**

Ooh, are we setting up a book on it? Honestly at this point I think just tossing a coin on who breaks first is as indicative as anything. They’re both walking right up to that line and then backing away before they say something they might regret.

I think part of it is timing. Yeah, Dean’s been asking Cas how he’s doing, and not accepting “I’m fine.” But he’s asking when they’re literally walking out the door to summon two ancient warriors to face in single combat, not when they’re just sitting around chilling after a long day’s research or something, you know? He’s waiting until they’re Mission Focused to ask, so clearly the reply he gets is going to be mission oriented…

*HEAVY SIGHING*

Part of it is that the Interrupting Moose is still a thing. Like in 13.13 when Dean was trying to apologize to Cas, and they were just starting to get somewhere when Sam and Donatello returned and they were right back to business.

*HEAVIER SIGHING AND MUTTERING SCHEHERAZADE UNDER MY BREATH*

Part of it is that neither believes the other actually returns the same feelings. Dean is TERRIFIED to tell Cas how wrecked he was while Cas was “temporarily” dead. He didn’t know it was temporary at the time, and it practically destroyed him– kinda literally– and on some level I think Dean doesn’t want to “burden” Cas with his weakness or neediness, you know? And at the same time, Cas HAS told Dean he loves him, that one time while he thought he was dying, and >.> maybe not the best way to reveal those sorts of feelings and then never mention them again, you know? Especially since right after that Cas flapped off to Heaven, went radio silent for weeks, returned long enough to steal the Colt, then ran off with Kelly because of some terrifying promise from the Satan Babby about bringing paradise. And now that he’s back, Cas’s mission is STILL all about that promise to Kelly and framed as what he can do to repay Jack for resurrecting him. Cas isn’t framing this in any way as about Dean. Or even as about “family.” It’s all Jack. So of course Dean isn’t going to do anything to selfishly stand in the way of what he thinks Cas wants. Dean’s gonna selflessly offer to help Cas in whatever way he can. Which he does, with the whole dumb “Whatever it takes.” Because Dean thinks that’s what Cas  _wants_.

UGH. I’M NOT EVEN SIGHING ANYMORE I’M DOING ONE OF THESE:

[Originally posted by historyvikings](https://tmblr.co/Zx1OLn20lcl3W)

I think this is why so many destiel shippers long for Sam to just get it. It’s almost like they need an objective third party to step in and talk to each of them separately here, because they’re both stuck.

They almost need for someone to point out to Cas that Dean was borderline suicidal while he was dead, and they need someone to point out to Dean that Cas is only continuing to try and be useful and act the soldier because he thinks that’s what Dean needs him for, and he’d do essentially anything to make sure Dean continues to need him, even if it has nothing to do with just WANTING CAS THERE.

GAH. THESE TWO ARE GONNA BE MY CAUSE OF DEATH.

I’m putting my bet on *ME* cracking first. :P

 

 

 


	200. Chapter 200

Mar 10, 2018

118 notes

There were an awful lot of assumptions made in 13.15, and we all know what happens when we assume…

1\. Sam assumes the “Most Holy Man” might be a saint. And this kicks off the entire escapade, and at the end of the episode, after everything they go through while single-mindedly trying to bargain, steal, or chicane their way into a vial of the blood of a saint… whoopsie! They didn’t need a saint’s blood after all.

2\. Sam assumes Margaret Astor has given them trustworthy information about the relics dealer she sends them to for help. He… literally found her on the internet and essentially checked her Yelp! reviews to vet her. Oh, Sam. She flirts with Sam, ignores Dean, and strikes a bargain– she gives Sam the introduction to the dealer, and he will owe her a favor. They believe she’s a respectable dealer, and yet… she was the mastermind behind all the rest of the chicanery Sam and Dean inadvertently get themselves tangled in.

3\. Sam and Dean assume they’re dealing with Richard Greenstreet in good faith, and that if they retrieve the stolen skull of St. Peter, he will give them a vial of blood from St. Ignatius. Because there was absolutely nothing completely shady about any of that, right? >.> But it’s the only option they believe they have, and they’re still 100% convinced they need a saint’s blood. They don’t particularly like the idea of working for Greenstreet, or going after mobsters to retrieve stolen holy relics for the guy, but… because of item #1 up there, they honestly do not believe they have a choice.

4\. Sam and Dean assume they can retrieve the skull from the thief/courier before he hands it over to his buyer, a notorious mobster they’d really prefer not to deal with, but whoopsie, they’re too late. The thief has been murdered and the skull is nowhere to be found. But… who killed him, and who now has the skull?

5\. Sam and Dean are not dumb enough to assume that the man who interrupts their search of the dead courier’s motel room is actually a cop, and they easily escape before he sets the REAL cops on them.

6\. Sam and Dean assume the mobster Scarpatti must’ve killed the thief, but Scarpatti assumes that Sam and Dean are guilty of those crimes. At least at first. He then makes them an offer they can’t refuse… >.> They must bring him back the skull, which he believes he has the right to because he PAID for it to be stolen, and in exchange he will give them enough money to BUY the blood they believe they need for the spell. They literally can’t refuse, or he would’ve shot them dead on the spot. That would’ve been… counterproductive.

So at this point in the story, they’ve gone from one bad assumption into a situation they’re sort of compelled (at gunpoint!) to play along with, which they never would’ve agreed to if they hadn’t made that one bad assumption at the start. HOWEVER! Their intentions were good, and they truly believe in their underlying mission. Their cause is noble, you know? Sometimes things just spiral out of control, because they were working from shoddy information to start with. They didn’t have all the information they needed, they assumed things that forced them into a terrible no-win situation, and once they were there, they didn’t really have a choice but to push their way through and keep looking for a better way out. Which miraculously came to them like a bolt from the blue (or like a telephone to the back of the head… God works in…  _if you say mysterious ways, so help me I will kick your ass_. *raises hands in amused surrender*).

The mysterious ways manifest as the priest who’d been sent by the people of Malta to retrieve the skull of St. Peter, literally the rock on which their faith was founded. The priest made no assumptions. He brought a briefcase full of cash and hoped that would be enough to bargain for the return of this holy object.

From the point where Sam and Dean agree to help Father Camilleri retrieve the skull for the convent, it’s as if all their assumptions are overturned and clarified. Margaret Astor is unmasked as the selfish mastermind who arranged the entire drama over the skull hoping to profit personally from it. Greenstreet is unmasked as a conniving manipulator who offered to pay Astor’s henchman a million dollars cash to kill her and give him the skull (which he does). Scarpatti, who’d believed he was “in the right” because he  _paid_  for the thing and believed that he could pay his way out of this situation as well ended up just as dead as Astor.

But Father Camilleri, who had no claim to the skull other than the faith of the people who venerated it, and faith in God that he could do good by that, saved Dean’s life at great risk to his own. After everything went down, Sam’s quick little google search of Father Camilleri uncovered just enough information to get him to tell them a little more about himself… that the Pope had called him A Most Holy Man.

And to think that Sam and Dean’s first assumption had been that he was guilty of the murder and theft in the hotel room… all because of a misunderstanding.

Communication saved the day. Assumptions without backing them up can lead to seemingly inescapable conflicts that only get resolved through painful choices (and sometimes gunfights). But it’s down to the choices they make, and what motivates those choices.

 

[spn s13 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13-spoilers) [spn 13.15](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.15)

 

 

REPLY TO THIS:

[Mar 11, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171779264040/186282397milespersec-there)

56 notes

[186282397milespersec](https://186282397milespersec.tumblr.com/)

 

[ There were an awful lot of assumptions made in…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/171741051480/there-were-an-awful-lot-of-assumptions-made-in)

> So the real villain (for lack of a better term) was… MISCOMMUNICATION? *gasp*

 

oh my gosh… I just realized..

I wrote that whole meta around the “Never assume, because you’ll make an ASS out of U and ME” concept, but in 9.10:

**Dean:**  So you saying we’re both a couple of dumbasses?  
 **Castiel:**  I prefer the word trusting. Less dumb. Less ass. 

This was a scene written by Dabb and directed by Singer (aka the two writers of 13.15). Dean and Cas were discussing the fact that both of them had been “played,” Cas by Metatron which ended with the Angel Fall Spell and Cas as a human, and Dean by Gadreel who’d pretended to be Ezekiel in order to gain Dean’s trust and then convinced Dean to do a lot of objectively awful things once he was in Sam’s body.

This happened MOSTLY because of miscommunication and a lack of trust.

Dean had had the chance in the bar to tell Cas how the idea of him leaving forever made him feel, but he didn’t, because he thought Cas truly WANTED to go back to Heaven forever. Dean was DUMB. Cas was DUMB. :P

Or, maybe stupid…

**FATHER LUCCA** : I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that God would reach down and protect us. Of course, that’s not going to happen. But I believe that all good things are God’s things. And what your brother’s doing, it’s a good thing.  
 **DEAN** : Yeah, or a stupid thing.  
 **FATHER LUCCA** : Or both. Many times, they can be the same.

So what was the difference between Sam’s stupid thing and Dean and Cas’s prior stupid things?

MISCOMMUNICATION REALLY IS THE WORST VILLAIN.


	201. Chapter 201

[Mar 21, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172113807065/hey-mittens-ive-been-reading-your-commentary)

23 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hey, Mittens! I’ve been reading your commentary re: J2 switching their lines in Slumber Party and wondered: when I think of actors switching lines bc they “understand their character,” my 1st thought is the crypt scene & “I love you” vs “I need you.” What’s your personal opinion on that change of lines? Would you agree with Jensen that Dean wasn’t ready to say those words, or do you think the script as written would have been truer to the character/ story?**

Hi hi! Well, first off, the line was changed, not switched as to who delivered which line, you know? So, slightly different circumstance/situation here.

And, much as I hate to admit it because GAAAHAHHHHHHH, I mean… I grudgingly agree it was the right call at that time, back in 8.17.

Just like– again, much as I hate to admit– I agree with having cut the scene in 7.17 where Dean said something to the effect of, “I always knew you’d come back” when returning Cas’s coat.

The fact that WE KNOW that these scenes even existed (or were written, in the case of the 8.17 “I love you” scene) kinda give the perfect sort of vague wink-wink-nudge-nudge vibe from the writers that yes, they know these things, they want us to know they know, despite the fact that they aren’t  _quite_  there yet… It’s been riding along beneath the surface layer for years.

If it wasn’t, there’s no reason for this information about these two particular changed scenes to have ever come to light, you know? These aren’t “mistakes,” or “bad characterization that got cut or changed,” but moments that pushed the dynamic too close to the line for the surrounding story.

And via the power of hindsight, knowing about them only serves to direct everyone’s attention to the subtext, where you can witness this unfolding in real time over the course of years. :)

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [if these lines had made it in it would've been the equivalent of scheherazade just getting bored after like](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/if-these-lines-had-made-it-in-it-would%27ve-been-the-equivalent-of-scheherazade-just-getting-bored-after-like) [472 nights or something like that and just accepting her fate to die](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/472-nights-or-something-like-that-and-just-accepting-her-fate-to-die) [like... do not want :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/like...-do-not-want-%3AP) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	202. Chapter 202

[Apr 1, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172496265605/i-so-badly-want-cas-to-know-how-torn-up-dean-was)

37 notes

**Anonymous asked: I so badly want Cas to know how torn up Dean was when he died-_- Of course Dean still doens't know Cas watched him rake leaves and that was like 7 years go so i'm not holding my breath lol, I just hope they don't drop this potential like they did the Cain/Colette parallels thing. Of course during the leaves thing and Cain storyline, using your words and communication wasn't as much of a theme; they seem to be really emphasizing that this season so who knows!!**

(cont) Did that sound wanky?? I apologize if it did! I get frustrated when it looks like potentially great storylines/paralles go nowhere, but I guess if they followed through with most of them like the cain/collette thing, destiel would’ve been canon and they’re saving that for endgame.  
  


Hi hi! And… it sounds like exasperation more than wank to me? Especially since you kinda explained exactly why you’re frustrated about it, and then explained why we’re all destined to be at least a lil bit frustrated until endgame. I completely sympathize. :P

I mean, there’s loads of things they both haven’t told the other, so far as we know. In addition to the raking leaves thing, there’s also the infamous “murdering hundreds of Deans to train to be ready to kill the real Dean.” I mean, the fact that Cas DIDN’T kill the real Dean in 8.17, and being ordered to do so was what broke Naomi’s hold over him… What broke the connection, Cas? DEAN STILL HAS NO IDEA IT WAS LITERALLY HIM.

The thing is, more and more we’re learning about entirely DIFFERENT things that happened offscreen, like Dean giving Cas the mixtape, like Dean and Cas watching movies together, like other circumstances where they’ve clearly done things together and we only hear about it but never actually see it. Because it’s important enough to remind us that they do a lot of random things together that we never see, because they might not be important to the plot of any given episode, or even to a season-long arc, but they’re too important to the character development and their relationship dynamic to pass entirely unremarked upon.

And that wasn’t the case in seasons past.

So yeah, while I have written numerous fanfics where they do talk about these things from their past (I mean this is a thing I do in essentially every canon fic I’ve ever written), the show has largely moved beyond those incidents from the past, you know? Instead of dragging them out and rehashing them and deconstructing them for us piece by piece, they’re pulling on the themes from those seasons (there’s a huge load of meta from s12 and s13 about how we’re seeing themes of essentially EVERY other season brought back and given a new twist), and then introducing new, different, and more POSITIVE things between them.

Dean giving Cas a mixtape instead of Cas watching Dean rake leaves and walk away. Similar themes surround both incidents, but with the mixtape they’re both full participants in an ongoing conversation instead of heartbreakingly torn apart through their own actions and choices, you know?

So yeah, I’ll take the actual relationship dynamic being expressed through the text this way rather than fret over whether or not they’ve talked openly about their painful past of miscommunication and misunderstandings.

Then again, you’re also 100% correct that if they did start bringing up these old hurts and addressing them directly, there really wouldn’t be a way to do so without getting so very dangerously close to Major Confessions. And I still think they’re holding that back for endgame, whenever that ends up being.

 

 

[Apr 1, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172502559350/yeah-i-agree-we-dont-have-to-see-everything)

36 notes

**Anonymous asked: Yeah i agree, we don't have to see everything being discussed and worked out in order to assume it's being handled. A lot happens off screen, as you said. As far as having to wait until endgame for canon destiel: i mean i get it. I'd love to see more same sex relationships play out on screen, and i'm sad we most likely won't get to explore that part of Dean and Cas's relationship in depth. But that's just how this particular show is choosing to handle it; a lot of it has to do with SPN's format.**

Yeah. This has just always been the format, and as the relationship evolved, they’ve never changed the way they’ve handled it. It’s honestly the main reason there’s just so much unresolved tension between the two of them, it’s the main reason that their relationship feels like an endlessly slow burning angst, and why it’s accumulated such an overwhelming weight of feeling behind it. So while on the one hand it would be such a release to finally break all that tension, and while it would be so validating for so many reasons for them to take it to a new level, for me anyway it would fundamentally destroy the story they’ve been patiently telling us all these years.

At the same time I’d love to see real representation on screen, really see Dean come out as undeniably bi, actually hear both of them confess their feelings in no uncertain terms… I just can’t help cringing at the impatient demand for it to happen RIGHT NOW. And even worse, the pitchforks and torches brigade insistently proclaiming that they’re “cowards” or somehow telling a bad story or somehow gaming the system by continuing to tell the story as they always have.

I mean, they could still shoot the fat lady before it’s even time for her to step out on stage, but until they do, I’m gonna stand here and completely defend the integrity of their storytelling. Because they’ve done NOTHING (yet!) to make me doubt that they are telling a consistent story here.

I’ll just be over here in the corner muttering about Scheherazade.

 

 

[Apr 3, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172557008545/isnt-it-in-a-way-bad-for-us-that-spn-is-getting)

112 notes

**Anonymous asked: Isnt it in a way bad for us that spn is getting renewed with no end in sight? Bad in terms of getting what we want like destiel cause canon destiel if it happens then likely only at endgame and like u said a few pages back before that its gonna be frustating so the more endgamd gets delayed the more frustation. Ntm the fragile nature of "endgame" in tv products that depends on a vary of in and outside show factors thatcould change by the time spn is airing its finale**

But I like this show! I want it to get renewed, because I enjoy watching it.

I… don’t understand this mindset of “I love this show, but just let it end already!”

  


(stolen from[ lizbob’s gifset here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172494189315))

Why can’t we just skip to the end? Because it’s about the journey. I get it if people aren’t enjoying the journey and want to jump out, but we KNOW what this journey is about, we know it’s a long and winding road here, and we have no idea about the eventual destination. Not everyone likes car trips, and I do get that. But my favorite thing is driving, and I’m honestly enjoying the ride.

My personal frustration comes more from the backseat wails of “ARE WE THERE YET?!” than from watching the road unfold in front of me.

I don’t consider a renewal “bad for me.”

I also said in many other posts over the years that I am 100% here for the story as it unfolds very slowly, and very deliberately. Remember I’m the one whose destiel tag since 2014 is “[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural/chrono).” If you don’t understand that reference, I suggest you read about the narrative structure of 1001 Nights, and why it took Scheherazade so long to tell her story.

That’s how I’ve been thinking of the destiel within the larger narrative of Supernatural  _for years_. Seeing it unfold from that perspective is far more satisfying for me personally, so maybe it can be useful for others to see it in those terms. I hope so anyway, because I personally am extremely satisfied with how they’re very consistently telling this story. And I’d be happy for them to keep telling it for as long as they’d like to.

 

 


	203. Chapter 203

Oct 29, 2017

142 notes

**Anonymous asked: Their portrayal of Dean in grief is so raw and realistic. He's an excellent portrayal of someone in deep grief, especially the beginning stages. He's directionless, angry, lashes out, cynical, hopeless, and isolating somewhat (sitting alone in his room drinking). He's angry that the only thing that will help him is--as far as he knows--not possible, and he's angry that he's angry. It's like a ripple effect. Directionless anger is it's own hellscape and is so real after losing someone.**

I know! It’s really hard to watch, because it feels so raw. Not only is he grieving and angry and in pain, but he feels like he doesn’t have the luxury to just feel that. He feels like Sam’s pushing him to just accept their loss and move on. Or trying to redirect his grief into actively searching for a way to open the rift and rescue Mary.

Not to mention the fact that Dean now feels like he’s being forced to take responsibility for the very thing he blamed Cas’s death on in the first place. And again, feels like Sam is trying to force him to spend his time and energy being NICE to the being he feels is responsible for Cas’s death… and he’s really not out of line feeling that way.

Going all the way back to 12.08, from the moment they first learned that Lucifer had fathered a nephilim,  _their primary concern had been stopping said nephilim from being born_. Jack’s conception rang cosmic alarm bells so loud that even the BMoL picked up on them (even if it took them most of the rest of the season to figure out what they meant).

This was A Bad Situation™ that was built up as something on a par with how potentially catastrophic the Darkness getting released had been. They then spent the next 11 episodes scrambling around trying to find Kelly and figure out a way to STOP the cosmic disaster from being born, or from being a cosmic disaster (the grace extraction cure). Cas  _spent several weeks off the radar in Heaven_ working with angels who largely wanted HIM dead because that’s how dire this situation was. He stole the Colt to kill Kelly because he didn’t want Sam and Dean to be burdened with having to kill an innocent… and then couldn’t bring himself to just shoot her either. The compromise was to bring her through the portal to Heaven so that she and Jack could be at peace, and the danger would be over. But there was a last-minute WHOOPSIEDAISY with that plan, and Jack’s power decided it didn’t want to just retire quietly to heaven after all…

So Cas disappeared AGAIN, and trashed his phone so they had no way to know what was even happening, and they had no way to let Cas know that Lucifer WASN’T safely locked in the cage but roaming the earth looking for his kid and likely headed to wherever Cas and Kelly were holed up…

And a bad situation turned worse… 

All because Jack (or his power) lured Cas away from safety (read: Dean) and everything just went to shit… Crowley’s dead, Mom’s missing and probably as good as dead, and Cas is…

So in Dean’s mind? Yeah, there’s a straight damn line from Jack to what happened to Cas. And now Dean’s supposed to be fucking  _nice_  to the kid? Like he owes the kid anything after all that?

Sure, Jack didn’t DECIDE to do any of that, it just all sorta happened in the magical bubble that surrounded his entire existence, but Dean is ANGRY. Because yet again, the universe has personally and thoroughly fucked him over.

He didn’t want THAT job. That is not the job he signed up for. He didn’t sign up to just give and give and give, just so the universe could turn around and take and take and take even more from him.

Hell, I’d be angry too.

 

 

 

[Oct 31, 2017](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166997766695/raina16-replied-to-your-post)

29 notes

[raina16](https://raina16.tumblr.com/)

 

[ Their portrayal of Dean in grief is so raw and…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/166933531160/their-portrayal-of-dean-in-grief-is-so-raw-and)

> I don’t agree that Jack didn’t “decide”, how do we know he didn’t decide? Seems to me that Jack was giving visions, Jack was doing mind control in the womb to insure he’d be born into this world AS AN ADULT. IMO Jack made those choices.

 

Okay, but… Jack himself has said, and we have seen demonstrated, that HIS POWER acts independently of his conscious control. He doesn’t recognize it when it’s happening, and it reacts when Jack feels personally threatened or scared or attacked, or when he feels pain. When he TRIES to actively control his power (like when Dean described teleportation or when Sam asked him to do something very simple like make the pencil move), he was unable to make his power kick online and do that.

That, to me, demonstrates that he has zero ability to access and use his power consciously. Yes, the one exception is the candy, or even arguably opening up the hellgate thingy for Asmodeus, but then he was motivated by what he was convinced was a POSITIVE EMOTIONAL REWARD. The candy one’s self-explanatory, but the hellgate… Asmodeus tapped into Jack’s sympathy for the “trapped soldiers” and convinced Jack that it was God’s Will that they be released. He fed into JACK’S EMOTIONS in order to trigger his powers, and it worked.

Before he was born, Jack’s primary concern was surviving long enough to BE born. His power was “in control” there. Fetus Jack wasn’t making conscious, rational choices based on life experience and personal history and actual information. It’s “fight or flight” with him right now.

That seems even clearer to ME after how Sam talked him down while they were in the jail cell. Sam pointed out that Jack WAS currently safe and not under attack. He couldn’t “hear the voices” anymore, and had to have it pointed out that he was no longer in pain, and that he could relax a bit. Jack doesn’t even get How To Human on that very basic level… and yet you believe he consciously chose to ensnare Cas to serve his personal needs?

I believe JACK’S POWERS, the same ones that react without his conscious control in matters of self preservation, are what ensnared Cas to THEIR will. If Jack had the same choice to make NOW, I don’t believe that current-form-Jack would actively CHOOSE to ensnare Cas with his powers that way. I think the notion that he MAY HAVE done it anyway is kinda horrifying to him, you know? He believes it’s the reason Dean “hates” him. And considering Dean’s his current barometer for “good and bad” in the world, he gets that Dean thinks he did a bad thing, even if he has no conscious memory of it, or any understanding of how it happened.

Just like he doesn’t understand how his power sent poor Sheriff Barker careening into the vending machine when she was just trying to comfort him. 


	204. Chapter 204

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lot of anon replies, destiel and endgame

[Apr 7, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172707161635/do-you-think-or-maybe-its-just-wishful-thinking)

42 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think, or maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but do you think that on some deep subconscious level, Dean knows? That Cas knows? That there's definitely something more there? That the other feels the same? But being the self loathing depressed little shits (I love the little shits anyway) that they are, their subconscious just represses it until it's in like the Empty. UGH they kill me.**

I think this is what makes it so unbelievably heart-wrenching, you know? The both of them, their self-loathing is a cosmic force. They’ve made steps in the right direction at least, and they’re not both still trying to throw themselves away. I mean, just this season Cas yelled himself out of the Empty, so that’s something, right? And Dean is beginning to accept small parts of himself that he never would’ve acknowledged even just a couple of years ago.

But they’ve both still got a long ways to go, in what they’re willing to acknowledge to each other (because doing that sort of thing is TERRIFYING even if you are positive the other person feels the same way, because it’s putting yourself out there, admitting this to someone who has the power to destroy you with it… this is no small thing). But there’s also the things they still can’t even fully acknowledge to themselves.

It’s why Dean accepts Cas’s statement that he must’ve been brought back from the Empty because of his promise to care for Jack. It’s why Cas accepts Dean’s offer to “do whatever it takes” to save Jack and Mary. It’s why these declarations  _don’t quite fit_ , and why they’re still not understanding one another completely.

And all of that just adds layers upon layers to the angst, which (theoretically) will make the eventual resolution all that much sweeter.

(when they’re finally allowed to have it by the narrative. until then I predict an agonizingly slow unbundling of the five foot deep layer of flannel they’ve bound themselves up in, during which there’s bound to be ongoing miscommunications, with the occasional self-revelation that will continue to mark progress in the right direction. but we’ve got a long way to go yet…) 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

[Apr 12, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/172879619155/hi-what-are-your-thoughts-on-deans-i-dont)

302 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi, what are your thoughts on Dean's "I don't wanna lose you again" to Charlie? I'm not at all saying she isn't important enough for a "confession" like that, because she undoubtedly is, but emotion-wise it's pretty big for Dean. I guess what I'm trying to say is Dean was devastated after her death but as we know he was downright suicidal after Cas' and that line is hard to top or in a way wouldn't have the same power anymore if he might use it again on Cas, which many kinda expected to happen.**

Yeah, but Dean’s personal burden of guilt over Charlie’s death in 10.21 and Castiel’s in 12.23 are just… light years apart, you know? They’re two completely different circumstances.

He’s ALWAYS felt personal, direct responsibility for Charlie’s death. It hurt him DEEPLY. But… his reaction to her death was very different to his reaction to Castiel’s. For a lot of reasons.

If Dean didn’t take the blame for Charlie’s death onto himself– which he did in part, and in part doled out HEAVILY by essentially wiping out the Styne family in revenge– then the only people left to blame for her death were Sam and Cas… and he just can’t… So self-blame it is. He’s the one who needed to be cured, after all. He’s the one who screwed up enough that she had to be dragged in to help fix him in the first place.

So to Dean’s thinking, he really can’t lose her again when he was so close to having a way to “save” her. So Charlie– any version of Charlie– being able to tell Dean NO to his face like this is A Big Deal for him. Just like his Charlie who wouldn’t give up on her friends and family, even if it meant risking her own life, AU Charlie made the exact same choice to stay and fight for what she loved.

And AU Charlie doesn’t really have any sort of emotional tie to Dean. So that’s HIS issue to deal with, not hers, you know?

So if he could so easily say something like, “I can’t lose you again,” to someone he acknowledged to Ketch even in this episode that he regarded as family, like a sister, who he’d failed in the past… why does he stumble over those words with regards to Cas?

It’s almost as if saying those things to Cas would be A Bigger Deal than saying them to Charlie, who he has used the same sibling language to describe their relationship for ages.

I mean, it’s like something profound is holding Dean back from being able to express the same sentiment with regard to Cas. Like he hasn’t even been able to explain to Cas just how bad things were for him while he thought Cas had been dead-dead for a few weeks there. It’s like Dean was so exponentially more traumatized by the loss of Cas that this parallel doesn’t even function, because it’s comparing siblings to… whatever Cas has become to Dean that he’s been unable to find the correct words to express for YEARS now, because that’s how terrified he is of losing Cas entirely.

I love these sorts of blatant parallels where the show is basically dropping anvils on our heads and telling us it’s sunshowers, don’t you? 

[spn 13.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.18) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [because that's really it here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-that%27s-really-it-here) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [THIS IS THE AGONY OF HOW THEY'RE TELLING THIS STORY RIGHT HERE](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/THIS-IS-THE-AGONY-OF-HOW-THEY%27RE-TELLING-THIS-STORY-RIGHT-HERE)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

[Apr 16, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173006773360/im-really-bitter-that-they-pretty-much)

40 notes

**Anonymous asked: I'm really bitter that they pretty much textualized drowley and have Dean sleep with all these other people yet the most we get as far as destiel is subtext. Like i hate to be wanky, it just really makes me sad:-( They clearly have no problem giving Dean love interests or having him be with men, or portraying lgbt relationships in general. So why would they do all that but not anything more as far as destiel?**

Because Destiel is The Bigger Story here.

All these other things– drowley, Dean sleeping with other people, other lgbt relationships being portrayed– are the small supporting stories to the overarching personal narratives of Dean and Cas that are laying all the subtextual groundwork for eventual canon destiel.

But while it might be the larger story, it’s also destined (pffft) to be the END of the story. Until the end (or close to the end), they’re going to continue building on the subtext and showing us other parallels that push Dean and Cas and their individual emotional arcs forward.

This… is how storytelling works.

“But why can’t they just go there NOW?! Why are they dragging it out like this?!”

Because that’s the way they’ve always told this particular story. This is the narrative structure they’re writing to. And just “giving it to us now” is like… chopping out a huge chunk of the story and nonsensically skipping to the end.

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [this is how stories work](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-how-stories-work) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [and again i'm gonna suggest everyone look up the wikipedia article on scheherazade and spend five minutes reading it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-again-i%27m-gonna-suggest-everyone-look-up-the-wikipedia-article-on-scheherazade-and-spend-five-minutes-reading-it)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[Apr 16, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173008133385/poor-anon-i-get-it-but-their-assuming)

9 notes

**Anonymous asked: Poor anon:-( i get it, but their assuming textualizing these other things means they WON’T textualize destiel. As you said, those are entries in a larger work. It can be hard to trust media when it comes to lgbt relationships, but look at the bright side of your argument. Spn clearly has no problem making those relationships canon. That’s a very very encouraging thing, I’d be worried about destiel if that *wasn’t* the case:-)**

Yeah. That. :)

As long as they keep consistently telling the same story and don’t yoink the whole thing off in an unexpected direction, I’ll happily keep listening to all the stories they want to tell while the big picture stories continue progressing by inches toward the finish line. :)

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

[Apr 18, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173068909320/im-not-clear-on-why-destiel-can-only-be-an)

55 notes

**Anonymous asked: I’m not clear on why Destiel can only be an endgame. After years of agonizing build up, could Show really be so cruel to not let us see Dean and Cas openly loving each other with Sam and anyone in their circle accepting them? By loving, I mean emotionally but physically would be fine too, even something like kissing. I don’t think it would be fair to have these barriers between them resolved and then just cancel the show leaving us to imagine what happens next. :)**

Hi hi! First off, one very important thing to remember: Supernatural isn’t just gonna get randomly cancelled. I mean… the network has been saying for the last few years that as long as they keep wanting to make the show, they can keep making the show. So it’s not just gonna up and disappear without warning, you know? This will be something that will likely be decided with the network, the showrunners and writers, and all the actors (Jensen, Jared, and Misha) in advance. And considering just how long the show’s been running, and how it’s still maintaining its core audience even after all these years, it’s DEFINITELY NOT something that everyone will just ~abandon~ with open plotlines, you know?

Barring some sort of huge unforeseen circumstances, the show will be allowed to come to a narrative conclusion.

So at this point, that’s not even something to be concerned about. Everyone involved is fully aware of these facts, and they’ve literally structured their lives around it.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can actively ask ourselves with that knowledge, WHY can destiel only be endgame? 

Because that’s the way they’ve been telling the story of Dean and Cas from the start. Back in s4-5, there were to be no “happily ever after” endings, because that wasn’t the story they were telling at the time. It was always only ever going to be a bittersweet ending, with Sam having sacrificed himself, Dean living a half-life to honor his brother’s last request, and Cas going up to clean up Heaven. That was Kripke’s endgame.

But the show didn’t end. And none of their stories ended either. So the original ending, where nobody was completely satisfied, nobody had a truly happy ending and settled for what they thought they could get at the time, is no longer narratively possible. They had to take the characters’ original “endgame goals” and expand on them. They could go one of two ways, and Sera Gamble decided to go tragic, but using the characters’ existing relationships to build that tragedy on. Cas sacrificed himself so Dean wouldn’t have to. Sam broke completely and literally had to be pieced back together. And Dean was left effectively abandoned by both of them again. S7 continued to chip away at everything the Winchesters ever had and loved before finally giving them a (conditional) win of sorts, which broke them in new and fascinating ways leading into s8.

Carver was initially under the impression that he’d have one season to tidy things up and salvage the whole series, and began writing s8 to a potential end that he could expand on if they were picked up again. When they were picked up again, they began more strenuously putting the characters through their paces– letting Cas experience humanity, taking away Dean’s humanity altogether, and pushing Sam to his limits. Carver became confident that he’d be allowed s10 to finally wrap up the entire series, and structured 8-10 as a three act narrative.

But then they got renewed again, and that’s about when the network began suggesting that SPN could run indefinitely if they so chose… Carver rolled back a bunch of character development stuff he’d been pushing toward, the end of s10 took a hard left turn, and s11 began this new era I like to think of as The End Of The Big Bad.

The big bad became the characters themselves, and their personal and emotional issues. This was the beginning of what I’ve been calling the scheherazade structure in earnest, where there’s essentially two things happening at once.

There’s still A plots– like the story of Amara, Lucifer, the BMoL, the AU and Jack– but there’s this slow-burn undercurrent that functions as an equally important (if not MORE important) overarching structure of the ENTIRE narrative. And that’s Sam, Dean, and Cas and their individual character arcs and their relationship toward each other. This is the scheherazade arc, which holds all the other plots together.

I keep begging people to [please just go read about Scheherazade](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FScheherazade&t=MDE4MDQ0NTZhMjg2NTllOWY3NzZhZTlhOTA4OGY4ZmNjNDViZDJiNCxKdllielA4bg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F173068909320%2Fim-not-clear-on-why-destiel-can-only-be-an&m=1). Just go read the bit of that article under the subheading “Narration.” Because in Supernatural, destiel is functionally the story of Scheherazade and Shahryar. And if she’d stopped telling her stories before the end, she literally would’ve been executed. We really do not want that for destiel, you know?

Does this mean we’ll have to wait for the final minute of the entire series to get any acknowledgement? Hopefully not. I suspect it will be NEAR the end– final season, final run of episodes, but near the end. Because the point is that that’s the GOAL of this type of storytelling. It’s the ENDGAME. And until then, they absolutely can’t let anyone have a happy ending, because that’s just the nature of this game.

Heck, there’s a possibility that we could get as much as a full season of post-confession drama, but at that point the narrative would have to create some reason to separate them, or make it difficult or impossible for them to be together, because that’s how drama works.

I keep going back to this quote from Davy Perez:

 

> For me I think it’s funny because I might have read it in a book somewhere, or maybe it was advice I got, in regards to writing television versus writing film. When you’re writing a film, you’re writing what is hopefully a complete journey, where a character gets called to action, where they go on their journey of discovery or their journey of tribulation, and then they arrive to an end point and you find, “Oh, I’ve learned this lesson,” or “I’ve grown so much.” And that was a satisfying, closed-ended story. Television doesn’t work that way. Television is about a character that you become invested in, and that you fall in love with. That character grows in incremental ways. Not only do they grow in tiny little increments, and sometimes don’t even grow, they go backwards. You don’t close the loop. You keep the loop open, so that hopefully when you know that okay, this is our final season, this is our final run of episodes, that’s when you can find those landing points, and that’s when you can sort of say this is the end of this journey.

BECAUSE DESTIEL IS PART OF THE END OF THESE CHARACTERS’ COMPLETE JOURNEY. They’re not gonna close the loop too far out in advance of the end of their entire story, because THIS IS WHAT THE CHARACTERS HAVE ESTABLISHED AS THE CONCLUSION OF THEIR OWN PERSONAL GROWTH.

These are their endgame goals.

Which literally can not happen before the end.

And why I get really tired of talking about Endgame this or that, because we don’t even know when that will be at this point.

Can we all please just enjoy the ride for now? I like the ride. :D

 

[this is how stories work](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-how-stories-work) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [we have known this is their story structure for years now](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/we-have-known-this-is-their-story-structure-for-years-now) [and i get it's disappointing if anyone was hoping for progress on this](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-i-get-it%27s-disappointing-if-anyone-was-hoping-for-progress-on-this) [but this is literally one of the loops they will not close before that final season or run of episodes](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-this-is-literally-one-of-the-loops-they-will-not-close-before-that-final-season-or-run-of-episodes) [and they're really not gonna change their minds on this](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-they%27re-really-not-gonna-change-their-minds-on-this) [and if you watch with this expectation i promise it makes life a hell of a lot less stressful](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-if-you-watch-with-this-expectation-i-promise-it-makes-life-a-hell-of-a-lot-less-stressful) [it's spirals all the way down](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it%27s-spirals-all-the-way-down) [because they're not telling an infinite story here that can reasonably go past their happy endgames you know?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-they%27re-not-telling-an-infinite-story-here-that-can-reasonably-go-past-their-happy-endgames-you-know%3F) [at least not as this original narrative involving these three characters' personal stories](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/at-least-not-as-this-original-narrative-involving-these-three-characters%27-personal-stories) [that would be jumping the shark](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that-would-be-jumping-the-shark) [that would be making this story something it's not and never was](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/that-would-be-making-this-story-something-it%27s-not-and-never-was) [this is called having integrity as a writer and it's a GOOD THING](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-called-having-integrity-as-a-writer-and-it%27s-a-GOOD-THING) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

[Apr 18, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173070213135/savannadarkbaby-replied-to-your-post)

45 notes

[savannadarkbaby](https://savannadarkbaby.tumblr.com/)

 

[ I’m not clear on why Destiel can only be an…](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173068909320/im-not-clear-on-why-destiel-can-only-be-an)

> It’s just really depressing for Dean to go 14 years and what… another 2 or 3 or 4 before he can have even a modicum of happiness in the form of a partner outside of Sam? Ehh… That’s just crazy sad.

 

Yeah it is, but the show is actively addressing this, in the form of repeatedly asking these characters what they want, what kind of life they want, and working toward them choosing the life they want and resolving it with the kind of life they already have. This is a story explicitly about these things. These are the questions posed for Sam and Dean from s1, and from the moment Cas began questioning his orders from Heaven in 4.07. That’s why FINDING that happiness means the end of the show as we know it (i.e. the end of the show PERIOD).

Meanwhile they’re exploring family, what family is to them, what they’re willing to do for the ones they love (and understanding how to relate to one another in healthy and endgame goals appropriate ways), and even getting to the point where they can answer those questions about what they want and where they want to be in the first place.

This is the Road So Far. There’ll be peace when they are done.

It’s not like they’re all emotionally adrift, or all alone with nobody to love/love them in return until that point. It’s a journey, you know? They’re learning more and more how to rely on one another in different ways as they get closer to those goals. This is the core emotional narrative of the entire series.

The journey is literally more important than the destination.

 

 

[savannadarkbaby](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/savannadarkbaby) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [this is how stories work](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-how-stories-work)[narrative structure](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/narrative-structure)

 

 

 

[Apr 19, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173102378115/hi-mittens-thanks-again-for-your-reply-to-my)

14 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi mittens, thanks again for your reply to my endgame question. I didn’t mean to upset you. Sorry if I didn’t express my question well. I have read the tale and understand the connection. :) I only meant that similarly to the way Sam and Dean are now more relaxed around each other yet continue to work on their differences, I hope Dean and Cas can be more open but yes, of course not perfectly happy since this is SPN after all! I have enjoyed the ride live since season 2 so I’m devoted forever! :)**

aw, my pleasure! and I’m not upset. :)

I’m just here keeping on keeping on with the open-ended road we’ve found ourselves on. I thought it would help explain how I manage to maintain my chill despite the seemingly never-ending angst and sad. :P

I think they are slowly but surely dredging up all these miscommunication themes, and they are making some of these things huge Elephants that they can’t keep dodging forever. They might take steps backward to demonstrate the problems,but then they do eventually resolve these things… even if it’s very very slowly, and even if it’s not completely… Just going back and rewatching even recent seasons, you can easily see marked differences and progress in how everyone is getting along, you know?

I’m currently rewatching early s11, and whoa they’ve come a ways since then. So it’s not hopeless, just… glacially slow. :P

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[Apr 19, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173107388735/12-i-think-the-endgame-issue-is-so-difficult)

184 notes

**Anonymous asked: 1/2 I think the endgame issue is so difficult because the feelings about it often come from two different mindsets. People want to see what a relationship would look like between Dean and Cas, but also see a same sex couple represented. Also, people are gun-shy from past experiences where there's been the same kind of subtextual story only for there to be no resolution or confirmation. Or just flat out queerbaiting. People are tired of largely subtextual queer relationships.**

2/2 This is taking destiel to a very general, bigger, more complicated conversation about queer representation and media. But on a smaller scale, focusing just on SPN, the show is just going by the formula and format they want to go by. Why are they waiting until endgame? Because they just are. Yet it’s often spoken about on that larger scale when the actual issue is about SPN specifically and how they’re choosing to do this. It’s not always about grander scale, sometimes it’s individual.  
(same anon) Not that i’m invalidating the people who’s issues about destiel revolve around the much weightier “queer representation in media” thing. It’s just that sometimes you gotta look at the specific, individual show and what it’s doing and not necessarily “it’s doing the same things those other shows did so it must mean (whatever).” It’s tough. And we just don’t know and won’t know until we know.  
  


Hi there, first off. :D And yeah, it is one of those “zoomed into the specific context of this one show and how they’re telling this story” versus the “zoomed all the way out to a very specific issue in the larger scope of media representation.” The frustrating thing is when the two are conflated specifically for the purposes of generating wank about one specific show and how they are seemingly progressing toward what could potentially be an unprecedented and absolutely unique sort of representation that’s practically impossible to even begin in this exact way in this day and age.

A while back (and I can’t remember who wrote it, so apologies…) I read a spectacular assessment of this exact situation. When Supernatural began, nearly thirteen years ago, the environment was very, very different from how it is today. The way queer stories were told in general was very, very different. Hollywood was only barely beginning the shift away from clinging to the Hays Code with regard to how non-straight characters and relationships were handled on tv, and we were only about seven years post-Ellen coming out (which essentially ended up sinking her sitcom). Queer characters were almost universally tragic characters, and they didn’t get happy endings, if they could even be portrayed as canonically queer and not only subtextually so.

And when Supernatural started, even in 2005 it was very much rooted in themes of the past– everything from the ‘67 Impala to classic rock to the Winchester Brothers living in the eternal shadow of the tragedy that had touched their family in 1983. The entire concept of “Star Wars in truckstop America” evokes a very specific and gritty flavor of the past. This is what the show was built on– classic horror tropes and uncovering the truth about urban legends and monsters. Even the “On The Road” references from Dean and Sam’s names to the concept of Sam’s “magical qualities” being paralleled to Dean’s more subtle queercoding right from the pilot episode have long been meta’d into the ground.

The thing is, Supernatural has now been running long enough for the general media culture to have made substantial inroads into progressively more honest queer representation. At any point, Supernatural could’ve made a genuine leap into canonizing Dean’s sexuality as something other than perfectly heterodudebro straight. Because if that’s what the subtext has actually been implying all these years (which from the pov of “queer reading” and “queercoding” of the past– again, see the Hays Code– it’s obvious they have been), then why are they hesitating in this modern era where shows are not only actively portraying queer characters more and more frequently, but are receiving critical acclaim and public praise for doing so? I mean, it sounds logical that if they actually intended to “take the story there,” then they should just go ahead and make it so. Right?

But for a show like Supernatural, that’s rooted in this “old school” format, and a narrative consistently told through that same lens, with the same applicable tropes, and the same genre conventions regarding queerness and horror that it was built on back in 2005, this would literally defy the integrity of the narrative.

And therein lies the frustration. This is why people shout queerbaiting. This is why people have quit the show in frustration of feeling like if they really intended to go there, there’s very little reason to hold back at this point.

Well, except for Authorial Integrity.

That’s a big one.

It’s also one I’d hate for the show to compromise on. Because pulling out core subtextual character traits  _after thirteen years of consistently yet very slowly dragging them into the light_ , and making them fully textual before the run up to the series end would absolutely compromise the entire structure of the narrative.

As a viewer and a queer person, yes I would LOVE to see a textualization of Dean’s queerness as a “coming out later in life” and “it’s never too late to openly acknowledge who you really are” narrative, because that would be incredibly powerful at this point. The fact that I am actively seeing this happen (albeit in glacial slow motion compared to how it might happen in more “modernly rooted” shows where characters are often textually queer from the word go) and happening within the same narrative conventions that Supernatural has always been written within is more than enough to sustain my interest for now.

I sincerely HOPE that the show will eventually “do the right thing” with this subtext. I HOPE that the eventual endgame will finally textualize this, but it is literally the endgame goal of this series. I don’t know how else to explain that even while newer series will have characters come out and then just carry on under this “new normal” for the character, this is something so completely rooted into Dean’s “endgame character goals” that at this point to make it textual would bring far too much of his own core character development to a premature conclusion.

In writing, when you create a character, you start out by asking questions:

  * Who is this person?
  * What essential traits make him who he is?
  * What does he fear?
  * What does he love?
  * What does he hope for?
  * What is the source of his happiness?
  * How can I keep him from achieving his goals in a believable way?
  * How does he hobble himself from achieving his own goals?
  * What is his ultimate endgame goal?



In tv writing, this is part of what’s known as the “Show Bible,” or the guide to characterization so that the characters and plots and general narrative structure of the series can remain consistent from writer to writer. That’s why we have consistently seen Dean progress from where he was in s1 to where he is now. He’s clearly become more and more comfortable with himself, more and more open about things he loves (think “no chick flick moments” in 1.01 and “you love chick flicks– yeah I do” in 11.23). But they aren’t going to bring his character’s Major Personal Arc to fruition when the show is still being written without a concrete endpoint in place.

Because that’s being true and honest to the narrative structure and character development of both the genre of the show (classic horror) and the evolution of media in general since Supernatural began.

I know not everyone is comfortable watching the show continue as it always has with no guarantee of paying off more than a decade worth of subtext. Not everyone is willing to remain emotionally invested in a show that may eventually end on a huge queerbaity rug pull. But there’s an increasingly real chance that it won’t, either. I mean… if you can maintain expectations and understand there’s always a potential for disappointment in the end, it’s a lot easier to enjoy the story as it unfolds.

For other folks it’s probably easier to wait and see how everything turns out before emotionally committing to the show, and that’s fine too.

But I’m really tired of the blatantly unfair comparison of Supernatural– a 13-year-old show being told through the conventions of the traditional horror genre that’s maintained a consistent narrative  _for thirteen years_  regarding the character development arcs and the specific way they’ve been telling this story this entire time– and brand new shows that can essentially set up entirely different characters and write from a different baseline from the start, where a character’s sexual orientation hasn’t been sculpted into what has always been connected with the closing of that character’s narrative arc.

Yes, technically Supernatural could defy genre, defy their own storytelling, and explicitly make this textual right away, but that’s like… the dictionary definition of jumping the shark in this specific case. And that’s not something I want for Supernatural, or for Dean, or for Destiel.

 

[superantural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/superantural) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [queercoding](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/queercoding) [this is how stories work](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-how-stories-work) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

[Apr 30, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/173455866720/why-do-you-think-cas-hasnt-really-talked-about)

58 notes

**Anonymous asked: Why do you think Cas hasn't really talked about sex in general or his sexual encounter with April since that episode, aside from he and Dean talking about it in an episode shortly after? Is it because Cas became an angel again and thinks about physical/social things like that differently in that state? Or because the show is kinda ashamed of 9x03 and the mess that came after and wants to reference it as little as possible?**

Hi there. This is a really complicated question, and potentially contentious… but I think they have at least partly addressed it, and they’ve continued to address it from different angles– all the Cas vs Humanity stuff (which I tag  [you learned it from the goats](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/you-learned-it-from-the-goats)).

And (from an external narrative/production level) while I do think most everyone gets how… icky… that whole situation came across and would kinda rather forget the whole thing happened, I also feel that (from an internal narrative and character development viewpoint) Cas taking on the stolen grace in 9.09 and his sudden commitment to angelic duty after his conversation with Dean in the bar earlier in that episode about how well he was finally adapting to humanity was purposely jarring. Over the next few episodes, we get a very clear picture of just how much Cas is mourning the loss of his humanity and his inability to really *feel* human things now that he’s all graced up again.

We get this in everything from subtle changes in his posture and mannerisms and the return of his trenchcoat, all the way to him vocally lamenting his inability to experience something as simple and wholesome as a pbj now that he remembers what it was like to eat as a human and has something to compare it to.

I also think he has had a lot of time to reflect on ALL his human experiences, and we may never get any commentary on that fact in canon, but it’s reasonable to believe that he devoted at least as much consideration to his encounter with April as he did to that sandwich in 9.11. 

It’s entirely possible that his understanding of his encounter with April is something he views as just one more exploration of what it means to be human, what human physical intimacy really felt like, and how his impressions may be shaded due to the circumstances of it, the fact it was just physical intimacy without any sort of emotional attachment behind it. I think to him there’s enough emotional detachment from the act itself that he sees it in a more… academically enlightening fashion than anything.

The same way he lamented his inability to enjoy food now, because of his grace.

Not to mention they’ve kinda been busy with stuff since then… and then there’s the whole guilt thing (not about sex, but about like… everything), and the whole “reevaluating his life choices” thing that resulted from his death in 12.23, his experiences in the Empty, and his resurrection… I mean… all the rest of it has really overshadowed one human experiment more than four years ago that he’s incapable of even feeling/experiencing the same way again now that he has his grace back, you know?

Is it possible that it all might become relevant again in the future? Well, yeah. Is it currently relevant to the whole immediate Potential Extinction of All Angels, on top of the War World Michael Invasion? Well, not really. But it’s still low-level there to be addressed again if it becomes relevant.

 

[spn 9.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.03) [spn 9.09](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-9.09) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [you learned it from the goats](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/you-learned-it-from-the-goats) [spn 13.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.20) [but only insofar as this is where we are in canon as i write this not because it's relevant to the episode](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/but-only-insofar-as-this-is-where-we-are-in-canon-as-i-write-this-not-because-it%27s-relevant-to-the-episode)[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [because this is yet one more element that needs to be addressed or at least officially dismissed before the end](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-this-is-yet-one-more-element-that-needs-to-be-addressed-or-at-least-officially-dismissed-before-the-end) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

[May 24, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174216081985/i-know-you-dont-like-to-speculate-but-do-you)

28 notes

**Anonymous asked: I know you don't like to speculate, but do you think we'll see anything referencing the love spell stuff from this season next season? Like, true love's kiss soul mate stuff? I mean, I know everyone's got kisses on the brain with Dean and Cas and the missing possession moment, but is there any likelihood of it actually coming up, given past patterns of stuff carrying over season to season?**

Hi there! I’m gonna preface this with a disclaimer:

“everyone” doesn’t have “kisses on the brain.” I might be mildly amused by some of the crew trolling that goes on, such as those “kiss the season goodbye” posts from some of the cast, and the more notorious trolls on the crew (looking at you, Adam W), but I will never, ever ever EVER base any sort of meta or speculation on anything like that. I will not squee with delight when they make posts like that. Mostly I roll my eyes and move along. Because even when a few of those sorts of things lines up thematically or emotionally…  _they are not a valid basis for meta analysis in any way_. They are FOR FUNSIES!

(side note to say that I mainly worry over people who do put stock into those sorts of posts as some sort of evidence that members of the crew potentially know some big secret that they’re trying to give us hints about, but honestly? They’re trolls, they know people get all worked up about it, and they enjoy riling up the fandom. That’s it. This isn’t me trying to say there ISN’T something bigger happening in the narrative, but that you should be critical of the source of these sorts of “spoilers,” because this exact kind of trolling has been going on  _for literal years_  with no actual payoff… so take care of yourselves and don’t put all your hopes on some troll tweets, no matter how much “proof” you find in the narrative that the trolls might be trying to give you secret coded messages or whatever. Okay? Okay. I worry, is all, and I’ve seen too many people end up feeling hurt and betrayed when nothing comes of this sort of unfounded speculation.)

So, no. I don’t expect any sort of kiss.

But as for love-related themes? Those have been part of the subtext (and actual text) since like… s9 at least. So yeah, I expect them to continue.

I mean, there was a scripted “I love you” that didn’t make the cut in 8.17. I think that’s the latest we should assume the love themes were being inserted into the text  _intentionally_. Because the crypt scene was sort of a “true love’s kiss” trope thing, you know? What broke the connection, indeed?

9.06 instructed Cas to play “the jilted lover.” Early s10 had Cas literally pining away for Dean when he thought he was dead. Late s10 had Cas doing whatever it took to save Dean from the Mark, breaking through to him in 10.22– not enough to save Dean, but  _Dean didn’t kill him_ … not a complete reversal of the crypt scene but heck… >.>

I think I should just point at the Crypt Scene masterpost for reference purposes because I realized I’m gonna end up just retyping that whole post here otherwise:

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/167804413405/elizabethrobertajones-elizabethrobertajones>

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [THEEEEEEMES!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/THEEEEEEMES%21) [the crypt scene](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-crypt-scene) [here have my belated thoughts on the whole love... and love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/here-have-my-belated-thoughts-on-the-whole-love...-and-love) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [also you'll probably find plenty of further reading in any or all of those tags :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/also-you%27ll-probably-find-plenty-of-further-reading-in-any-or-all-of-those-tags-%3AP) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	205. Chapter 205

[Jun 3, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174550918495/tnt-is-showing-its-a-terrible-life-today-i-love)

25 notes

**Anonymous asked: TNT is showing It’s a Terrible Life today. I love all of the little details in Zachariah’s AU. I remember feeling thrown off by this episode at first after watching the emotional episode before it but each time I see this, I pick up on more subtleties of how the angels view Sam and Dean. And that cold open is genius too. :)**

ACK! (hi and sorry, I’m finally able to sit down and reply, as well as finally trying to catch up with the episodes of the tnt loop I missed last week… I’m still behind… oops)

It is a jarring transition from 4.16 and Dean essentially telling Cas to find someone else to save the world, because he can’t, while lying in a hospital bed feeling worse than he has since he got back from Hell. To go from that right to A Well Respected Man!Dean driving his Prius and listening to NPR– well, it’s supposed to be jarring. Even the vividness of the episode is jarring after one of the visually darkest episodes of the season to that point, you know? It’s a blatant manipulation by the show, just like what’s happened to Dean in the episode is a blatant manipulation by Zachariah.

(And the “vividness” I mentioned is deliberate, which becomes obvious when Zachariah boops Dean and restores his memories toward the end, and as it happens the colors all wash out. Sort of an instant version of the slow wash-out of 3.11 as Sam lives through day after day slowly draining the color as he goes.)

And you’re right. It does give a lot of insight into how all the angels view Dean (and Sam… as the tech support guy). Well, except for Cas. And, as I’m sitting here with 4.20 paused to type this up, I have to add Anna to that list with Cas.

This doesn’t have anything to do with 4.17, but I still think it’s important in the same vein, especially having watched 4.19 right before this. (Let’s just factor in 4.18 while we’re here, too, since we had a bit of Zachariah Meddling at the end of that one, too, shall we?)

When Anna pops into the back seat of the car and learns that Sam had let Jimmy escape (after also mentioning that Sam seemed “different,” with a hefty dose of side-eyeing and Sam trying to make excuses and dodge her query), she tells them just how bad it is that he was hauled back to Heaven.

**ANNA** : It’s Cas. He got sent back home. Well, more like dragged back.  
 **DEAN** : To heaven? That’s not a good thing?  
 **ANNA** : No. That’s a very bad thing. Painfully, awfully bad. He must have seriously pissed someone off.  
 **DEAN** : Cas said he had something to tell me. Something important.

“Painfully, awfully bad.”

Dean gets to see the results of whatever happened to Cas in Heaven at the end of the episode. The episode started with Cas desperate to get a message to Dean, scared to even deliver it except face to face (even the inside of Dean’s dream wasn’t safe enough). And then Cas tells Dean he serves Heaven, and not Dean, but we have to assume he now knows the true mission of Heaven (to start the apocalypse).

It took an 11th hour emotional plea from Dean to Cas on behalf of humanity to crack through what Heaven had done to him, for Cas to shake off his reprogramming. This is why in 5.13 when Anna appears in Dean’s dream the same way Cas had in 4.20, Dean immediately grasps the enormity of the situation with her and knows she’s not trustworthy:

**DEAN** : Where have you been?  
 **ANNA** : Prison. Upstairs. All the torture, twice the self-righteousness.  
 **DEAN** : Why wouldn’t he have told us where you were?  
 **ANNA** : Because he’s the one who turned me in. Don’t look so shocked. He was always a good little soldier. Did anything under orders.

And he sent Cas to meet with her instead of going himself. Because he KNOWS Cas is on his side again, and he remembers how not-on-his-side Cas had been after 4.20…

So as much as Cas has always understood the Winchesters better than any other angel, Dean’s always had a much better understanding of the rest of the angels because of Cas. :D

(and this isn’t even touching on the horror of them all discovering the source of Sam’s power over demons… heck 4.20 is owie in so many ways)

[spn 4.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.17) [spn 4.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.18) [spn 4.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.19) [spn 4.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.20) [spn 5.13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.13) [angels and souls](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/angels-and-souls) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [anna milton](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/anna-milton) [all my tags for zachariah somehow involve the fact that dean stabbed him in the face pffft](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/all-my-tags-for-zachariah-somehow-involve-the-fact-that-dean-stabbed-him-in-the-face-pffft) [seriously anyone who thinks cas truly belongs in heaven or with the angels needs to rewatch s4](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/seriously-anyone-who-thinks-cas-truly-belongs-in-heaven-or-with-the-angels-needs-to-rewatch-s4) [because fuuuuuck dudes... that's seriously messed up on like... every level ever](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/because-fuuuuuck-dudes...-that%27s-seriously-messed-up-on-like...-every-level-ever)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	206. Chapter 206

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the vast majority is not mine, but I'm posting it because I took a sad post and made it horrific

[Jun 11, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174790793385/nougatnephilim-paintmeahero-nougatnephilim)

679 notes

[nougatnephilim](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fprofoundbond.co.vu%2Fpost%2F174753646058%2Fpaintmeahero-nougatnephilim-solivagant97&t=OTk0NjhhOTQ3YmJmNjIxZDRmYzQ5Mzc1MmQ5YTQxYWQ0MDljNTUyYixiQUN4bWh4Rg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F174790793385%2Fnougatnephilim-paintmeahero-nougatnephilim&m=1):

> [paintmeahero](https://paintmeahero.tumblr.com/post/174753303485/nougatnephilim-solivagant97):
>
>> [nougatnephilim](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fprofoundbond.co.vu%2Fpost%2F174753225328%2Fsolivagant97-nougatnephilim-ive-probably&t=OTk4YmQzYjM2ZWJlY2U5MTBjZDhkMDFkYzUxMDliMTNmODcwZGZmZCxiQUN4bWh4Rg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F174790793385%2Fnougatnephilim-paintmeahero-nougatnephilim&m=1):
>>
>>> [solivagant97](https://solivagant97.tumblr.com/post/174753037756/nougatnephilim-ive-probably-said-it-before-but):
>>>
>>>> [nougatnephilim](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fprofoundbond.co.vu%2Fpost%2F174751071883%2Five-probably-said-it-before-but-what-i-love-about&t=OTc1MzBlNjI4NjI4NGQ2OWI1ZDIyM2ZmNzcwNDgyZWFhYWI1ZWI0NyxiQUN4bWh4Rg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F174790793385%2Fnougatnephilim-paintmeahero-nougatnephilim&m=1):
>>>>
>>>>> i’ve probably said it before but what i love about the purgatory scene where dean and cas fight with the leviathans is that cas is so in character. he fights  _only_  when dean is harmed/in danger of getting harmed. as soon as the leviathans focus on  _cas_ , cas lets go and accepts it. he just goes with it. dean probably saw this as cas being weak and not trying- but cas wasn’t weak, as he says later. he can fight when dean’s wellbeing is at risk, but as soon as it’s about himself, he just lets go. i’m not sure if that’s in the script or if it’s just misha knowing his character really, really well at this point. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> but yeah, i think about this a lot: cas wouldn’t have fought the leviathans if dean wasn’t there. he warns  _dean_  that they’re coming, fights to protect  _dean_ , and if it wasn’t for dean, cas would’ve let the leviathans kill him. it’s both brilliant and painful and we don’t talk about this enough. 
>>>> 
>>>> I think it’s because Cas self-esteem was low at the time the purgatory scene happened. Cas said he didn’t deserve to be saved, and he was broken when he cured Sam and still felt guilty for making him that way in the first place. It was hard for him and, I think, he thought that he was not worthy, that he doesn’t believe there’s anything in this world that can keep him going and make him alive. Except keeping Dean alive. He would do anything to keep Dean safe and he does it, no matter how low he feels about himself, he still has that one purpose - to save Dean. And that’s just beautiful.
>>> 
>>> Yes that’s exactly what I’m talking about, how Cas is so selfless during purgatory (even more so than normal), and would rather die than accept he was worthy of being saved. And the fact that Dean could simply not believe/understand the idea of Cas not being worthy just… wow. 
>> 
>> I actually think that Dean eventually realizes this, and it pisses him off.
> 
> Of course he realizes, that’s the point of their conversation when Cas shows him what really happened. That’s when Dean realizes; when Cas literally tells him. Before that, he just thinks Cas didn’t trust him, blamed himself for not being good enough for Cas. He didn’t think Cas would think like that and thus told himself he was the mistake.
> 
> However, I think he truly realizes the impact of Cas’ selflessness is when they talk in 8x08 and Cas says he’s afraid he’ll kill himself when he’s sent to heaven. Dean assumes Cas is afraid to die, afraid the angels will kill him- but he’s wrong, again. Cas isn’t afraid of how others see and perceive him, he’s afraid of his own thoughts and how they changed from powerful strong angel to self-hating angel. Cas wouldn’t be scared to die if it wasn’t for Dean (and Sam) to need him around, and even that is debatable to him.
> 
> Cas is really messed up in season 8, and it’s both very in-your-face but also very small in tiny details. He tries to become something else than himself (“I think I’mma become a hunter”), giving himself a new chance. Or even better. He’s trying to chance from himself to the people he looks up to, the people he sees as a) better than himself, b) Good and c) maybe even as the best kind of people: Sam and Dean.

I hate to do this because this is painful enough already, but Cas had been running from the Leviathans since they landed in Purgatory. That’s the whole reason he’d run from Dean, to draw the attention of the Leviathans off Dean so he’d have a fighting chance.

Once Dean finds Cas, Cas learns that Dean knows of a way to get out of Purgatory, and that the only reason he hasn’t left yet was because he refused to leave without Cas. Cas knew that Dean WOULDN’T leave without him. That the only way to MAKE Dean leave without him was if Dean knew bringing Cas was a hopeless venture.

Cas expressed his doubts about the portal even working for an angel, and Dean dismissed it in 8.05 with, “Cas… we’re gonna shove your ass back through the eye of that needle if it kills all three of us.” Dean was not gonna willingly leave without Cas. Dean had been dismissing the threat of Leviathans in Purgatory since they found Cas, but Cas had been running out ahead of them and fighting them off for a really long time on his own. He wasn’t about to roll over and die the first time they caught him, you know? He needed to survive for Dean’s sake. He needed to keep drawing the Leviathan off Dean, and he couldn’t do that if he let them kill him.

So what changed? Cas wasn’t going to leave Purgatory, but he knew Dean had a way to escape that Dean wouldn’t use unless there was no hope left of getting Cas out. The only way Dean might give up on him was if Cas was dead… and I’ll stop typing now and go cry in a corner for a while.

 

[spn s8](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s8) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [SOMEONE NEEDS TO MAKE THESE TWO MORONS TALK TO EACH OTHER](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/SOMEONE-NEEDS-TO-MAKE-THESE-TWO-MORONS-TALK-TO-EACH-OTHER) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [spn 8.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.02) [spn 8.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.05) [spn 8.07](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-8.07)[suicide mention](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/suicide-mention)


	207. Chapter 207

[Jun 13, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174857225825/i-think-one-reason-im-so-optimistic-about-destiel)

283 notes

**Anonymous asked: I think one reason i'm so optimistic about destiel being endgame is the fact that Dean has had MULTIPLE chances at a long-term romantic interest. I mean, they keep bringing up that he longs for that, for someone to be with, and they've gone through many women who by all intents and purposes fit him perfectly. And yet here we are, 14 seasons into this and the young single protagonist has yet to find a love interest (extremely unusual). If he never will, why bring it up in the first place?**

Yeah, Dean has been trying to figure out who he is and what he would want if the universe would only stop trying to end itself once a year.

At the beginning, Dean put on the act that he was perfectly happy cruising around the country just hooking up with whoever interested him at any given time… and then we met Cassie. She was someone Dean loved, who he told the truth about his entire life, only to have her break up with him. He wanted something more with her, but… issues. After they reconnected, he respected her wishes to move on. I think this is why they introduced Lisa, and Dean’s “bendy weekend.” She’d been memorable at a time when Dean was trying to relive his greatest hits (after he’d sold his soul and thought he only had a year to live). He hadn’t intended to rekindle a deep and meaningful long-term relationship with her, or to discover she’d settled down into a comfortable and respectable life, living in suburbia with a son. He hadn’t intended to develop stronger feelings for her at the time, but he wandered back into her life in a Perfect Storm type situation, just in time to save her son from a supernatural threat. It was an emotional foot in the door to share the reality of his life with her, and put her in a position to not immediately reject his story the way Cassie had.

She became something of a holy grail for Dean after that, sort of the way his memory/imagination pushed Mary up onto a pedestal in Dean’s mind, Lisa became something of a fantasy of “normalcy” that Dean never thought he could have because of who he was and what he’d done. But then he had a year to live that fantasy life… and no matter how hard he tried, he just wasn’t happy, and he never could (or really wanted to) escape entirely from his past. I mean, that shot at the end of 6.02 when Dean whips the tarp off Baby and heads back out on the road to hunt? That always felt like the first time he’d felt truly free and happy in more than a year.

Yet despite this, Dean has been wondering more and more what it might like to be able to settle down with another hunter, someone in the life. This was a HUGE thing back in s11, which has been pushed to the back burner when Mary came back and then Lucifer decided to procreate… but we HAVE still been seeing a lot of what really makes Dean happy, and what he just can’t live without anymore.

(Cas. I mean Cas here, obviously.)

And here he is talking about his idea of a happy ending in 13.23, which is Sam, Cas, and him sitting on a beach with their toes in the sand, wearing matching Hawaiian shirts. I mean… it’s not explicitly the “white picket fence, apple pie life” that he’d always thought he was SUPPOSED to want, you know? But I think he knows that’s how he could actually BE HAPPY.

And really, that’s all I want for him. :’)

  

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [i honestly don't think either of them could be happy without the other at this point](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-honestly-don%27t-think-either-of-them-could-be-happy-without-the-other-at-this-point) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	208. Chapter 208

[Jun 13, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174857452600/im-rewatching-season-13-and-i-cant-believe-how)

75 notes

**Anonymous asked: I’m rewatching season 13 and I can’t believe how lost dean was without Cas. I mean, they mention his mom a little too, but it seems like the emphasis is really on Cas. (Yelling at Sam about how he can’t forget about how the kid was the cause of Cas’ death). Then the whole scene with Billie. Dean was so quick to kill himself and it’s cannon that he’s ready to die. He doesn’t even want to go back for Sam. He’s lost Cas and he’s done! I hope all this is groundwork for cannon Destiel.**

AAAAH, I know, right? The key was that we saw Sam’s major upset in the aftermath of 12.23 revolved around Mary. He also saw Cas die, saw the burnt wings, watched them burn Cas’s body… Sam had been able to mourn and let go of Cas. But he HADN’T seen Mary die, only saw her dragged into the alternate universe by Lucifer. He still held out hope that she somehow survived, and that there could be a way to find and save her from that world.

It’s not that Sam didn’t care about Cas, or wasn’t sad that he was dead, it’s that Sam didn’t believe there was any hope of getting Cas back. What’s burned stays dead, after all. So why was Dean absolutely shattered over Cas’s death? Why was Dean practically giddy with happiness when Cas miraculously came back to them? Why did his happiness at this look entirely different to Sam’s?

Aah, those Major Lingering Questions.

And going into s14, we’re going to see both Sam and Cas grieving over what happened to Dean, and both trying to save him. Hopefully this bodes well to see some interesting parallels now between how Sam and Cas demonstrate their feelings in different ways… I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to this.

 

[spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [spn 13.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.03) [spn 13.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.06) [spn 13.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.23) [spn s14 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-speculation) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel)[the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[Jun 17, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174989083775/destiel-relationship-development-is-shown-each)

500 notes

**Anonymous asked: Destiel relationship development is shown each time Cas dies. #1 he explodes and dean is bummed. #2 the leviathan drag him into the water. Dean takes the coat with him and has a quivering lip bobby-“you just lost the best friend you ever had” #3 dean fights like hell to find him in purgatory and cant contain his joy when he’s alive #4 died in s12 Dean couldn’t even function Had no faith, wanted to die. Destiel is a fricken slow burn but its sure as hell burning! We’re on the right track!!!**

OOH. But I have some addenda to this:

1\. He explodes (in 4.22), Dean is bummed in 5.01, but also angry and inspired to fight in Cas’s name (*blasts Zachariah with a banishing sigil* Learned that from my friend Cas, you son of a bitch.)

2\. He explodes again (in 5.22), and Dean is distraught, but his problems are only escalating. Lucifer/Sam kills Bobby a moment later, and Dean’s still gotta stand up to FUCKING LUCIFER so this is no time to break down and cry, you know? And by the time Sam takes back control and flings himself into Hell, Dean’s got… nothing, and then Cas comes back, heals him and Bobby, and then flaps off again. But Dean’s made a “dying wish” type promise to Sam to get out of the life, to get out of hunting, and live normal… so he lets Cas go… (WORST. PROMISE. EVER. oh my god, I’m still bitter over that.)

3\. in 7.01, it looks like Cas is dead for a hot minute right after he returns the souls to Purgatory. Dean looks like he’s gonna cry, and then miraculously, Cas resurrects (again!) This is about the most painful thing in the world, because he gets to be alive for like… three whole minutes before…

4\. in 7.02 the Leviathans walk him into that lake and explode him… This is the first time Dean wonders if Cas really isn’t gonna come back, you know? He had THREE TIMES before this, but as the days turn to weeks and Cas isn’t back, he’s got to be wondering. Except… through that whole time, through that long string of stolen cars, during a year when Dean had just about everything (including his own identity) stripped from him HE STILL CARRIES CAS’S COAT WITH HIM. *cries forever about a desperately-in-need-of-laundering overcoat* (come on, you know that thing was drenched in Dean’s tears, okay? he cried A LOT in s7))

5\. Purgatory. and then everything AFTER Purgatory, through brainwashing (a kind of death of personhood) right up through 8.23  and “So, what, ET goes home?” and just *rips out own heart because it hurts less*

6\. Not really a death, but in 11.01/11.02/11.03 when– despite the terrifying and unknown threat of the Darkness– he’s still primarily driven by worry/fear over Cas. He knows Cas is in trouble, and in 11.01 his primary reason for wanting to kill the “zompires” and escape the hospital is so they can find and help Cas. This only gets more intense as…

7\. Post 11.14, when he learns that Cas has been possessed by Lucifer. Finding and Saving Cas becomes Dean’s ONLY mission for most of the rest of s11. Sure, Cas isn’t dead, but HECK, you know?

8\. 12.19/12.20, Dean’s terror that Jack has “done something” to Cas, and rendered Cas unable to assert his own will, brings back horrors of s8 when Cas was being controlled by Naomi. Leading us up to the horrific angst of…

9\. 12.23. This was the first time that Dean had seen Cas die by angel blade. This was the first time he’d seen Cas with the full burnt-out wingprints. Somewhere deep down, Dean knew this was different. This wasn’t something Cas would just miraculously pop back from. God wasn’t answering the phone anymore, and Dean had no hope that Cas could come back from this.  _He burnt him_.

This was the first time he’d had a body to burn. The first time he’d had to wrap Cas and build a pyre and watch him burn. “What’s burned stays dead.” (which is such a disturbing thing when we’re talking about the slowest of slow burns here)

Until it doesn’t.

But yeah, Dean was ready to die in relatively short order when he thought Cas was gonna be gone for good. But then he came back… and not everything is all just hunky-dory, but heck… at least he’s back.

And now it’s Dean who needs saving from Michael, very much like Cas needed saving from Lucifer in s11. It’s time to see this situation reversed.

 

[spn 4.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-4.22) [spn 5.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.01) [spn 5.22](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.22) [spn 7.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.01) [spn 7.02](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.02) [spn 11.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.01) [spn 11.03](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.03) [spn 11.14](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.14)[sp 11.18](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/sp-11.18) [spn 11.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-11.23) [spn 12.19](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.19) [spn 12.20](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.20) [spn 12.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-12.23) [spn 13.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.01) [spn 13.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.05) [spn 13.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.23) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [burn baby burn](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/burn-baby-burn) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

[Jun 17, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/174995609560/dean-tells-cas-in-purgatory-i-need-you-when-in)

198 notes

**Anonymous asked: Dean tells Cas in purgatory “I need you” when in fact he really doesn’t “need” him. He’s been destroying every monster in purgatory for the better part of a year without Cas. Dean thrives in that kind of environment. I think when he says he needs Cas it’s because dean is starting to get to the point where he emotionally needs Cas. Thought?**

He doesn’t “need” Cas because Cas is a good fighter, or an attack dog (as he was attempted to be painted in s12, mostly by the BMoL). He doesn’t need Cas because he’s useful, or smart.

He needs Cas because he… he just NEEDS him in his life. Kinda like we need air and food and water.

He just needs Cas to be around. Which makes “need” the word he needs to clarify for Cas. Because no matter how many different ways Dean keeps saying it, Cas still isn’t hearing “I just want you around, with me, just because.” And even that really doesn’t cover it at this point. :)

Heck this is why my “using your words” tag is stuffed to overflowing…

 

[spn s8](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s8) [need vs want](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/need-vs-want) [using your words](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/using-your-words) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)[someone needs to buy these morons a dean-to-standard-english translation dictionary](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/someone-needs-to-buy-these-morons-a-dean-to-standard-english-translation-dictionary)[Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	209. Chapter 209

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another cluster of assorted anons

[Jun 18, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175024327215/when-do-you-think-the-dean-cas-dynamic-makes-get)

30 notes

**Anonymous asked: When do you think the dean Cas dynamic makes get have changed between purgatory reunion and s13 reunion? Dean lost Cas in pugatory and he felt a lot of guilt. He cared about him because he told Cas that “like every other god forsaken thing that I care about” but it wasn’t this amazing reunion. when Cas died in s12 it seemed like less guilt and more longing/grief. And when Cas came back, Dean was completely changed. He went from suicidal to having hope again. What changed between those two times?**

Oh heck, you’re asking me what changed between Dean and Cas between 8.02 and 13.05/13.06?!

um… like five years of ongoing character development?

I don’t mean to sound flippant here, but that’s how character development works. They went through a lot of nonsense from the time Cas was brought out of Purgatory, brainwashed and subsequently broken free of said brainwashing by Dean, yet still bound to serving the Angel Tablet. Then Cas was tricked by Metatron into the angel fall spell, and had his grace stolen and lived for nearly half a season as a human, all while Dean was dealing with the consequences of his bad deal with Gadreel to save Sam after failing to complete the Hell Trials…

Guilt ensues.

Dean takes on the MoC to kill Abaddon, but then it takes over him, and Cas takes on stolen grace to be “useful” to his fallen brethren. They’re both dying half the time throughout, but eventually Cas gets his grace back and Dean’s freed of the Mark, but that leads to Other Cosmic Consequences like the Darkness…

Cas nearly succumbs to Rowena’s attack dog spell, but Dean saves him. Dean fears he’ll succumb to Amara, but for all intents and purposes his worry over Cas (once he discovers that Cas is possessed by Lucifer) supersedes any draw Amara has over him… >.>

I mean, plot happened for  _five years_  that continually progressed their story. Of course what happens in s13 is gonna be fundamentally different than what happened in s8. They’re at different places emotionally, they’ve experienced a boatload of crap that’s evolved who they are, you know?

 

 

[Jun 18, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175024783390/it-kills-me-to-watch-s6-cuz-i-hate-that-cas-makes)

49 notes

**Anonymous asked: It kills me to watch s6 cuz I hate that Cas makes the wrong choice I hate that the relationship between him and Dean is suffering. I comfort myself by reminding myself that a. Cas didn’t tell dean because he wanted to protect him b.) Dean waned to believe with all his heart that Cas wasn’t betraying him which says a lot because deans ALWAYS the first one to be skeptical c.) dean forgives Cas in the end and welcomes him back with open arms. (Just think happy thoughts aka reunited in purgatory!**

Aww, the terrible thing about Supernatural is that the entire plot revolves around all of them making wrong choices, you know?

going all the way back to s1, terrible choices are one of the major components that drives the entire plot.

Let’s look at some highlights: 2.22, DEAN SELLS HIS SOUL. I mean, to start out on a big, super obvious Wrong Choice. Sam works with Ruby and against Dean in s4, and whoopsie, frees Lucifer. Sam and Dean decide to slam the gates of Hell, and whoopsie, hubris that gets penalized in ever increasing ways through the end of s11. Mary and then Sam sneakily decide to work with the BMoL, and whoopsie they’re actually nothing but murderous jerks who are trying to commit monster genocide… 

I mean, this show is built on the backs of all their wrong choices. And they all are just trying to do the best they can in really awful circumstances where there really aren’t any good choices, you know?

 

 

 

[Jun 22, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175148822480/i-imagine-those-who-see-the-i-know-who-you-love)

54 notes

**Anonymous asked: I imagine those who see the "I know who you love" line as platonic think the "I know what you fear" line is referring to the fact that Cas fears losing Sam and Dean and/or them getting hurt. I dont see it that way. I think it's romantic af. But I think that's probably how those people would read it.**

Yeah, I mean, Cas does say he needs to get back to “Sam and Dean,” but the Empty Entity LITERALLY CALLS HIM OUT ON THIS:

**CASTIEL** : Send… Me… Back.   
 **COSMIC ENTITY** : That’s not part of the deal. No, no. Besides, you don’t want to go back.   
 **CASTIEL** : Yes, I do. Sam and Dean need me.  
 **COSMIC ENTITY** : Oh, save it. I have tiptoed through all your little tulips. Your memories, your little feelings, yes. I know what you hate. (Whispers) I know who you love… what you fear. There is nothing for you back there. No. Here. Let me show you.   
[The entity touches CASTIEL’s head. CASTIEL screams.]  
[We see some FLASHBACKS: METATRON stealing CASTIEL’s grace; LUCIFER killing CASTIEL; CASTIEL walking into the lake after the LEVIATHANS took over; CASTIEL returning the souls he stole from Purgatory; CASTIEL lying on the floor, seemingly dead, after returning the souls.]

Metatron stealing his grace (which he felt was a betrayal of Dean, because he defied Dean’s request to just stay, to wait, and ran off to Heaven to confront Metatron himself. He didn’t trust DEAN.

Lucifer killed him. Well, that was the moment that landed him in the Empty in the first place. He’d been trying to kill Lucifer, to protect Sam and Dean, yes, but DEAN was the one Sam had to drag back through the portal when Cas went charging in there. DEAN was the one who collapsed to the ground over Cas’s body. 

The whole returning souls to Purgatory and walking into the lake from 7.01 and 7.02… is DEEPLY associated with Cas apologizing TO DEAN SPECIFICALLY (Sam wasn’t even in the room, and while Bobby was, Cas didn’t tell Bobby that he’d find some way to make this up to him, he told DEAN.)

So…taken in context of ALL the information in that scene, it’s even harder to justify a platonic reading here.

 

 

[Jun 24, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175210835365/hi-there-im-sorry-if-this-has-been-covered-so)

45 notes

**Anonymous asked: Hi there!:-) I'm sorry if this has been covered so feel free to just link me to existing posts about it, but when Dean thought Sam died this season, he reacted more or less the same way he did when Cas died (though we got a little more depth with Cas's death due to time restraints and Sam coming back much quicker). I'm not very meta-minded, and i'm trying to pick out the differences, how one's different than the other, when they're portrayed as so similar. How is the reaction to Cas romantic?**

Hello! :)

I’ve been staring at this since last night (through the wooziness, which made it seem all that much more inexplicable), but now that I’ve had sleeps and a pot of coffee, I completely get why I was so baffled by your question. It’s incredibly simple, really.

Looking only at Dean to try and dissect his emotional reaction to loss, to grief, and trying to judge what aspect of his personal pain makes his grief objectively platonic or objectively romantic is always going to come down to a matter of opinion, you know? There is no way to place that sort of objective judgment on someone’s emotional reaction. There will always be room to view someone’s pain through one’s own lens of interpretation, which makes any analysis of Dean’s emotional state, his reactions, even his words, inherently subjective.

You can’t look only at Dean’s reactions in a vacuum, you know? CONTEXT MATTERS. It’s what defines his reactions.

Saying “well, Dean was upset by both Cas’s death AND Sam’s death,” is true. Saying objectively that his reactions to each of their deaths were different and attempting to list objectively observable differences that clearly delineate one reaction as “objectively romantic” and the other as “objectively platonic” will inevitably lead to “well I just don’t see it that way” from other people who, well,  _just don’t see it that way_.

It’s a line of thinking that’s inherently tainted by the opinion of each viewer going in. If the goal is to deny there’s any difference between the way Dean feels about Sam and Cas, that’s the lens through which you’ll interpret Dean’s expression of emotion. If you truly believe going in that Dean feels differently toward Sam and Cas, that’s the lens you’ll apply, and read all of Dean’s reactions through that lens.

So… is there a way to OBJECTIVELY analyze the differences here? Well, not without CONTEXT!

I love context!

What context has the show given us to explicitly definite the “objective quality” of Dean’s grief? Everyone else’s reactions in comparison.

The show spent the first third or so of s13 explicitly demonstrating that Sam’s reaction to Cas’s death was DISTINCTLY DIFFERENT from Dean’s. We know that Sam is not indifferent to Cas, that he thinks of Cas like a brother, that he cares deeply for Castiel. These are all things we also know that Dean feels about Cas… so if that was the whole truth about how Dean feels about Cas, then why was Sam able to get over Cas’s death and move on, while Dean sunk into a black despair over it? Why did Dean end up screaming in Sam’s face about it in 13.03? Why did Dean literally give up in 13.05? And why did Dean’s entire outlook pull a 180 in 13.06 when Cas came back to him, while Sam was glad Cas was back but like… in a highly platonic fashion and not “restored hope for the universe and provided so much more than the will to live, but also a sense of joy and happiness.”

While it’s easy to explain away any or all of Dean’s reactions to Cas’s death as potentially platonic,  _when compared directly to Sam’s reactions, this reading becomes questionable at best, and outright ludicrous at worst_. Unless you’re gonna suggest that Sam didn’t react as strongly to Cas’s death as Dean did because Sam is just an asshole (which in itself is just a ludicrous interpretation, because by every metric known to man, Sam is NOT an asshole), attempting to suggest that we weren’t shown a relentlessly blatant series of differing reactions for some purpose is just… untenable.

Regarding Dean and Cas’s reactions to Sam’s death in 13.21, yes there’s the obvious difference that Sam was restored to “Alive” within just a few hours and so we didn’t get to see the multiple weeks worth of grieving. It doesn’t give us as much to work with, but Cas’s instinct to protect Dean from seeing Sam’s body while they’re running out of time to save Mary and Jack, as well as Dean’s markedly “parental” reaction to Sam’s death as some sort of personal failure, and they way he was unable to even talk about it in a similar way to how we know he was unable to talk about Mary’s death when he was a child… I mean, he had to break the news to Mary that Sam didn’t make it… *pauses for five minutes just to cry on Dean’s behalf*

But there’s also the reaction AFTER the fact, how Dean reacted to Cas being alive vs Sam being alive. Also distinctly different.

In the bigger picture, with all context applied, all of these differences seem far more obvious rather than looking at a single distinctive moment and being able to say “yes, that’s obviously romantic while this other thing is clearly platonic.” 

 

 

[Jun 25, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175246428510/im-rewatching-spn-dean-handles-himself)

120 notes

**Anonymous asked: I’m rewatching spn. dean handles himself differently around Cas. I notice it a lot when Cas and Sam don’t agree. Dean tends to play peacemaker instead of just siding with sam blindly And whenever someone tries to put dean in his place he balks them. Is a smart mouth But not with Cas. s6e17 dean is mad at Balthazar dean-“Cas, you need new friends” “I’m trying to save the ones I have dean” Dean shuts up, looks down (slightly sheepishly) Why does dean act this way with Cas? Almost consistently!**

Oh gosh…I mean going back even further, to 4.15, back in the days when Dean DID balk at Cas…

**CASTIEL** : That wasn’t your friend Bobby who called, Dean. It wasn’t Bobby who told Sam about the seal.  
 **DEAN** : That was you?  
CASTIEL looks down.  
 **DEAN** : If you want our help, why the hell didn’t you just ask?  
 **CASTIEL** : Because whatever I ask, you seem to do the exact opposite.  
 **DEAN** : So, what now, huh? The people in this town, they just gonna start dying again?

Not included in that snippet was Dean’s reaction to Cas calling him out… nor Cas’s reasoning for why these good people had to die when Cas had made an exception for Dean himself– that Cas believes Dean is  _different_. Dean can barely bring himself to accept that fact, that he’s special or important, more so than any random person in any little town. But Cas refuses to let Dean forget it, and eventually he just begins to accept that Cas feels that way, even if Dean doesn’t get it himself. :P

Cas is just relentless, and he wears Dean down in really interesting ways. He isn’t flippant, he isn’t dismissive (at least not much past 4.03 and the “I pulled you out of hell, I can throw you back in”), and he makes an honest effort to understand Dean and his feelings. Cas learns How To Human from Dean, for better or worse, going all the way back to s4.

They just…  _get_  each other, you know? From years of observing one another, working together, and building a healthy respect for each other, forgiving each other, and forging an honest bond out of free will. Through a decade of nonsense, they’ve stuck by each other, and that makes for a friendship (pffft… friendship) that can survive apocalypses.

 

 

[spn 7.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-7.23) [dean and cas are in love](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-and-cas-are-in-love) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural)

[Jun 25, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175256738640/when-cas-makes-a-mistake-cuz-he-thinks-hes-doing)

128 notes

**Anonymous asked: When Cas makes a mistake cuz he thinks he’s “doing the right thing” dean gets mad and hurt and Sam tends to feel bad for Cas and understand that Cas was just trying to help. I know their reactions could be different cuz their personalities are so different. Sams always trying to get Dean to cut Cas some slack. For instance s8e22 Cas is back after losing the angel tablet. Dean is pissed because “you didn’t trust me!?? You didn’t trust ME!!” Why do you think dean reacts differently than Sam?**

I mean… It can’t possibly be because Sam and Dean have fundamentally different relationships with Castiel. It can’t possibly be because Sam thinks of Cas like a brother, and Dean… well… Dean tries to force himself to believe that he thinks of Cas like a brother when clearly there is something more going on here.

This was about personal betrayal. Dean had been PERSONALLY hurt by Cas since 6.20, and this is that moment coming to a head. (well, since long before 6.20, as we learn IN 6.20, but that was where Dean had personally asked Cas to just stop, just because, because they’re family and they will find a better way… and Cas refused and basically ended things horribly).

This goes on to include such other personal-to-Dean actions as promising to make things right in 7.01, before apparently perma-dying in 7.02. This also includes Cas unable to face what he’d done, denying any responsibility for trying to fix things, and ultimately doing what he could to help DEAN PERSONALLY by 7.23. And then we go on Cas’s slide through guilt and depression, running from Dean in Purgatory (to protect Dean!), staying behind in Purgatory (because he doesn’t feel he deserves to be saved!), being manipulated for the rest of s8 by Naomi (which just frustrates and confuses Dean), then running off with the Angel Tablet in 8.17 by telling Dean specifically that he needs to keep the tablet save from Dean… personally… I mean. This led to Cas running away again, when Dean offered him a different, potentially better way, and then Cas getting captured and tortured by Naomi, and then Crowley, and having Crowley steal the Angel Tablet. I mean… Cas was arguably being controlled by outside forces, but Dean took that very personal rejection by Cas  _hard_.

None of this really had anything directly to do with Sam, you know? Sam wasn’t even in the room (crypt? whatever) when the personal betrayal went down.

 

 

[Jun 25, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175257206915/in-your-opinion-what-were-the-most-significant)

19 notes

**Anonymous asked: In your opinion, what were the most significant destiel moments this season, whether it be direct moments between Dean and Cas or moments/plots/etc that may not mention them specifically but contribute to their narrative overall?**

oh gosh, all of them? >.>

(I’m sorry, I know you sent this a while ago, and by “a while” I mean weeks… I’m trying to catch up and at this point have resigned myself to the fact that’s impossible)

Dean’s grief over Cas’s death, his descent into defeated nihilism, his absolute glee at Cas’s return, COWBOY FREAKING HATS, his guilt over not realizing that Cas had been captured and imprisoned (and subsequently impersonated) by Asmodeus, 13.14 and how they worked together, their new understanding after that, and ack… I mean, the whole season was great for this.

I’ve probably got 300 posts from s13 on all this, and I don’t know if it’s even possible to boil it down to just a bullet-pointed list, or even a short reply here without going into dissertation level analysis, and heck… I can’t even.

I know this isn’t really helpful, but you basically asked for a breakdown of Dean and Cas’s individual growth arcs, and how their arcs interconnect and support one another throughout the entire season, and that’s just… not something I’m gonna just sit down and dash off. I don’t know how else to reply, aside from generalized pointing and flailing, inviting you to explore my blog for past posts episode by episode on this progression, or just sitting down for several days and writing a 10k word formal essay on the subject.

Everything happened so much? That seems like a good tl;dr for the essay I don’t have time to write. :) 

[spn s13](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s13) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [i'm not trying to be snarky here... i have just been experiencing A Guilt every time I've scrolled past this in my inbox](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27m-not-trying-to-be-snarky-here...-i-have-just-been-experiencing-A-Guilt-every-time-I%27ve-scrolled-past-this-in-my-inbox) [and lamented that I will likely not have time or mental energy to author this dissertation in the near future](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-lamented-that-I-will-likely-not-have-time-or-mental-energy-to-author-this-dissertation-in-the-near-future) [despite feeling like it's definitely something i should make time for...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/despite-feeling-like-it%27s-definitely-something-i-should-make-time-for...) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

 

[Jun 26, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175280131550/this-may-seem-like-an-odd-question-but-how-do-you)

92 notes

**Anonymous asked: This may seem like an odd question, but how do you think destiel originated in the narrative? Was it always written in? Or do you think it was the chemistry between misha and jensen that instigated it? (Or maybe some other reason...?) I'm kind of curious how Jensen, a seriously good actor, would let the "eyesex" we see just happen accidentally... There had to be some level of intentionality in the early seasons, right? Idk, im sure there's a lot we cant know there, but im curious what you think**

Hi there! And first off, I think I need to stamp a big flashing disclaimer label at the top of this one, because I see a lot of well-intentioned but often cringingly misinformed or outright stabs in the dark or assumptions presented as “obvious fact,” and heck… 

I am not affiliated with the staff of the show. I don’t know what the inside of any of the writers’ or showrunners’ heads look like, you know? All I know is what I’ve heard from their own mouths over the years, which I’ve tried to piece together logically. I’m not here to present this as some sort of “document of absolute, unassailable fact,” but “this is what logic would lead me to believe personally.”

But there are some important facts to bear in mind while asking oneself how destiel came to be, and how (and why) it evolved.

First off, there’s this assumption which is arguably incorrect that Kripke began Supernatural from the pilot episode with some Grand Vision of a complete five season arc. And he himself has made numerous statements invalidating that belief. We know for a fact that his “original vision” for the show boiled down to “star wars in truck stop america” where two plucky ghost hunters drove around confronting urban legends and myths that were real in their universe. I mean, just look at the first half of s1. It’s all MotW style episodes that lay out the groundwork of the universe’s mythology.

At the start of the series, Demons were so far above the Winchesters’ pay grade, and Kripke joked about how he would never introduce Angels as part of that universe. It was a running theme in the writers’ room from the start of the series. No angels.

And then the writers’ strike happened, leaving them with a truncated s3 and no room to write themselves out of the corner they’d backed themselves into. Dean landed in Hell, and Kripke relented, with “okay, angels, but only if they’re dicks.”

I think it was likely only part of the way into s4 where Kripke stopped fearing that they might or might not get a renewal for s5 when he set about the whole Apocalypse Arc, with 5.22 as a theoretical end of the series. He has said this himself, that it was Misha joining the show that finally gave him a little breathing room to plan for the future of the series in this way.

And remember also that Misha was originally only scripted and contracted to appear in three episodes. At the beginning of s4, even Kripke hadn’t planned out the fate of his universe beyond that.

So while viewers saw 4.01 and the barn scene and immediately began shipping the thing, because that’s what shippers do, I don’t believe that Castiel was (even in Kripke’s wildest imagination) scripted to take on such a large role in canon.

So while Shipper Zero (waves hi at [@k-vichan](https://tmblr.co/m4FImMInGlX_QoCekzgv66w)) was already making a case for destiel, Kripke was still focused on making the ratings to even THINK about planning a two season arc to stop the apocalypse. It just so happened that Castiel– a character that Kripke had never intended to write (NO ANGELS!)– became the hook on which his vision for the theoretical end run of his little series hung.

From his first appearance, it was clear that Castiel’s closest tie was with Dean. He pulled Dean out of Hell, and as we see unfold over the course of s4, Cas had been charged by Heaven to essentially shepherd Dean through all the necessary paces to make sure that Heaven’s will was served. Even Cas had been misled on what Heaven’s true objectives were, leading to that HUGE moment in 4.22 where Cas was forced to choose a side, and because of Dean’s influence, he rejected Heaven and chose Humanity.

Now, I don’t believe that was written as some sort of great romantic gesture, you know? Because we all know that despite what Dean and Cas struggle through together over the rest of s5, Cas’s duty returns to Heaven as soon as the apocalypse is thwarted. If Kripke’s “original vision” for the end of s5 had stood as the series end, that would’ve been the last time that Dean ever saw Cas. So… not exactly the stuff of shipper dreams, you know?

But Kripke passed the reins to Sera Gamble and s6 marched onward. The intent was to write Castiel out permanently, and thanks to Ben Edlund and 6.20 for giving Cas a voice before his inevitable demise, we end up with this bit of canonical personal betrayal and heartbreak between Dean and Cas.

Granted, going in to s6, Gamble was planning for and writing a single season arc, because she no longer had that assumption of continuing past s6. I think a lot of the romantic tropey stuff in s6 only slipped in because there was the belief at the time that a) Castiel wasn’t intended to survive the season and this is all swell but it’s never going to amount to anything but Manpain for Dean, and b) there was no guarantee they’d even be picked up for s7 to have to deal with the consequences of these choices anyway.

but then… whoopsie… they had s7 to deal with. Including spiraling ratings. By 7.17 when Cas miraculously came back, I think they’d sort of written themselves into this particular corner. Yeah, choices were made in how Cas’s return happened, but after 15 episodes of Dean mourning Cas (and Bobby, and pretty much everything else in his life up to and including Sam by 7.17), the one thing he got back first was Cas. And Cas was the key to beginning to rebuild Dean’s entire life, starting with Sam. And yet… in the same breath Cas returned Sam to him, Cas also disappeared into his own head. He was RIGHT THERE, but he had nothing else to give to Dean right then. All of that led into the buildup to s8, and I think that was really the point at which the narrative began treating Dean and Cas’s relationship as something different, and something more serious.

I’ve been watching early s8 for the last two days, and here’s a little snippet from my angst-ridden chat with lizbob this morning:

> mittensmorgul  
> I hate this. Cas, confused: So you think this was your fault?  
> I.e. the moment when it stopped being just Dean and Cas preventing themselves from finishing a conversation, and the narrative itself took over preventing them from finishing a conversation.
> 
> mittensmorgul  
> It may have begun because it was starting to get implausible that they were just that stubborn about talking to one another honestly and openly, but whoopsie that actually made their relationship issues structural to the narrative
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> Yeah, Ms Tran is like HEY HOW DARE  
> YOU CAN’T FINISH A CONVERSATION  
> BEEP BEEP
> 
> mittensmorgul  
> and then in a few more minutes it’s Interrupting Moose’s turn
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> knock knock
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> who’s the-  
> INTERRUPTING MOOSE
> 
> mittensmorgul  
> oh noooooo… go away mooseman! STOP INTERRUPTING.  
> NO SAM, THEY ARE VERY NOT OKAY
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> :<

And their issues went from being a sort of sidebar to the actual narrative structure of the series and became inextricably linked with the larger narrative.

So, fun as it is to go back through the entire series and look for all the destiel along the way, I think that’s most likely when it became a factor that drove the plot, rather than something secondary to the main plot, at least from a structural perspective.

And now, after s13 and going into s14, their relationship and feelings toward one another have become foundational to the actual cosmic structure in their universe. Dean’s grief was powerful enough for Jack to ride across dimensions into the Empty, where even God was unable to tread? Yeah, that’s cosmic. And now Cas is in a similar position dealing with a cosmic, interdimensional dilemma focused on Dean. I mean… it’s literally the foundation of the narrative structure of s13 and s14. Not only are the writers taking their relationship seriously, they’re using it to support the rest of the narrative.

I think this is kinda what you asked, at least? I’ve been typing for a really long time now. D:

 

[Jun 27, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175313592445/is-the-end-of-4x02-supposed-to-be-sort-of)

66 notes

**Anonymous asked: is the end of 4x02 supposed to be sort of uncomfortable to watch? like not even that cas has basically just told someone traumatized over a hell experience that he could send them back for more, but the quiet, darkness of the scene has a bit of a tense intimacy to it, like what's going to happen. they way jensen turns his head when misha moves closer is brilliantly played to me because how many other times have we seen dean flinch away in fear from someone, i can t even recall if he ever has.**

Yeah, I mean Dean’s just come back from Hell, and we know he’s trying to do his usual “shove it all down and pretend everything’s fine,” but whoa this is something so much bigger than he’s ever tried to ignore, you know? He was in Hell  _ten years longer than he’d been alive as a human_. To him, at that point, he was struggling to even readjust to being human, let alone dealing with the 30 years of torture, followed by ten years of being the torturer and the attendant shame and guilt that we don’t even learn about for weeks after this. Dean’s hanging on by the tips of his fingers here.

Enter Castiel, the terrifying force powerful enough to have resurrected him from Hell, despite everything he did there. He’s just learned that GOD HIMSELF is paying attention to him in a specific and targeted fashion, and that the weight of the universe essentially rests on his shoulders. His job, according to the Angel who rescued him, is to stop the freaking apocalypse.

So Dean reacts with the false bravado he relies on to BS his way through this level of trauma and wtf-ery. And whoa, Cas threatening him like that (before Dean even feels close enough to him to shorten his name to “Cas”), is a bit of a shake-up to his typical coping mechanisms.

At that moment, it sort of works as a wake-up call that he can’t just ignore this and keep going on like he normally does, flying by the seat of his pants from disaster to disaster. He can’t just brush this off. The universe won’t let him.

But then, in retrospect, we see Cas slowly get to know Dean, slowly begin to question everything he’s ever known, and come to reject Heaven’s authority as corrupt, and to side more and more with Dean as he uncovers the truth.

He goes from OBEY, OR DIE, essentially, to “We’re making it up as we go,” in 20 episodes.

And yes, Dean flinched in 4.02, but even more remarkably, he won over this terrifying, absolute being, this wavelength of celestial intent with the power to smite him with a thought. And now they still stand up for one another against cosmic odds ten years later.

Enemies to friends to… whatever the heck they are now. >.>

 

 

[Jun 29, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175388872995/my-friend-doesnt-believe-theres-any-physical)

42 notes

**Anonymous asked: My friend doesn't believe there's any physical chemistry between Dean and Cas. I don't even know what to tell her about where to start. Seasons 4 and 5 had a lot of really good moments where the attraction--mainly on Dean's end--was pretty obvious. Seasons 6 and 7 were more emotionally/grief focused. Season 8 had the famous boner scene, and season 9 despite its' issues had a few stand out moments. I--am i doing something wrong? Do normal people look at their friend like they want to devour them?**

I won’t just be outright rude or presumptuous and suggest heteronormativity as the cause of this, but… 

<http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/163604858930/at-some-point-i-stopped-seeing-the-phrase-i-need>

I was looking for another post, but found that one too… hang on… OKAY THIS IS THE POST I WAS LOOKING FOR! Originally posted in December 2016 (I remember, because I read it at the Fort Meyers Airport, and that was a great vacation…)

<http://awed-frog.tumblr.com/post/154029322752/the-romance-arc-destiel>

As told via tvtropes long, long list of Romantic and Love Tropes. Destiel has gone so far beyond that initial physical chemistry, that first shine of attraction that inevitably wears off and either dissolves entirely or grows into real caring and love… I mean for the last few seasons we’ve been using # [HASHTAG MARRIED](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/HASHTAG-MARRIED)   to describe them, you know? Not that there aren’t any more of these “I would swallow them whole if they stood still long enough” moments, but heck, there is SO MUCH MORE to their relationship now. As we should expect after ten years.

 

 

[Jul 16, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175940394935/do-you-think-its-open-to-interpretation-whether)

152 notes

**Anonymous asked: do you think it's open to interpretation whether dean and cas are in love with each other? Like is it just as valid an interpretation to say they're not? Whenever anyone calls destiel "one interpretation" or whatever, my hackles rise. And I know I'm overly sensitive about this stuff, being a gay and whatnot, but I mean, is it? Am I just insecure because my otp isn't canon, or is destiel really more valid than other readings or what? What do you think?**

Hi there. :)

I’m gonna give you the diplomatic, academic answer, and then I’m gonna give you the grumpy-ass queer lady answer. Hold on to your horses. :)

Polite answer:

All media is open to interpretation. Of course, this doesn’t mean that all interpretations are equally valid, or equally supported by canon, especially when taken in context of the entire body of the work in question.

For example, [I replied to a post the other day about 13.17](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/175783096120/tenoko1-bilosan-i-love-books-13x17-the), and that scene where Dean and Sam are– on first glance– rather disrespectful of the extremely rare and valuable books in the bunker… but in context of the rest of the episode and the rest of the season, that montage wasn’t about disrespecting those books at all. It had less than nothing to do with the books themselves as objects or as sources of knowledge that should be properly cared for and respected. But out of context it kinda looks that way. So, based on that one short gif set, it might seem like a perfectly legitimate interpretation to suggest that Sam and Dean were careless with the immense knowledge and invaluable books they’ve found themselves in possession of. But in the larger context of their entire history, of all their interactions with the bunker and the untold store of knowledge it holds,  and with the context of the specific reasons for their frustration in that particular scene, it seems obvious that there’s a lot more to the story, you know?

You could technically argue just about any weird headcanon can be supported by canon. I wrote [this weird little post](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/164764210985/an-headcanon) right after 12.11 aired, and it sat in my drafts for a good long time before I finally posted it. But there’s nothing in canon that legit quashes the possibility that endgame fish!Cas is where the story’s been headed all along. He’s positively swimming in fish metaphors. (sorry, I couldn’t resist) Does that abundance of fish, fishing imagery, and water imagery that have surrounded Cas for years lend itself to a literal interpretation? I mean, it’s definitely AN interpretation that is there if you want to see it, and if in your heart of hearts you believe it’s legitimately what the storytelling is attempting to convey here. But does that make it a valid interpretation that deserves serious consideration? Does it truly make sense when taking the larger story around Cas as a whole? Or is it obviously a literary theme that we’re supposed to consider through the themes traditionally associated with fish and fishing as used in countless other fictional works of the past? I suppose that sort of interpretation has been left open for us to take or leave as we see fit. It invites us to examine those references more closely, to help us understand Cas as a character and the journey his personal character arc is taking him through. It gives his experiences and growth a depth of context that is there to explore if we so choose.

(for more on Cas vs Fish, please see my tags regarding “The Fisher King.” I like to think there’s a more well-reasoned and logical line of thinking for pinning so much fish to Cas than my cracky example of fish!Cas would suggest.)

Now, looking at destiel specifically, if you take any single moment out of context, it’s absolutely possible to make an interpretation that their relationship is clearly more “brotherly,” or clearly more “familial,” or clearly one of “very close friends.” But it requires the same removal from the larger context to explain away what taken with the entirety of their history begins to look entirely undeniable.

I suppose, since Supernatural is an open canon and the story hasn’t been fully told yet, that it’s possible the writers could change course with the storytelling. It’s possible that something might prevent them from taking Dean and Cas and their story to the conclusion they’ve been building to for the last ten years. They could decide to leave this particular “interpretation” open-ended and unresolved.

Since that is always a possibility, and because I’m not psychic, nor do I have any top secret inside information from the writers and showrunners, I can’t say that my particular interpretation is more valid or correct or likely than anyone else’s. But I have yet to come up against a credible, coherent explanation for the entire body of extant canon that invalidates my particular interpretation, either.

The vast majority of arguments against boil down to logical fallacies– cherry-picking scenes out of context as “proof,” straw man arguments, and ad hominem attacks. Because of this, I’m content to wait for canon to play out. I’ll happily watch the rest of the story unfold, and happily continue to interpret what I’m witnessing as a whole instead of attempting to dissect it out and explain away what I see as an entirely logical progression of storytelling.

As an aside here, I find it entirely fascinating that one of the most common complaints I read from people who deny Dean and Cas are in love is that the writing has become progressively more terrible, that the story of Supernatural as a whole makes less and less sense, and that the characters are behaving in increasingly “out of character” ways. And as someone in possession of rational capabilities, I wonder if their disconnect from the storytelling is simply their refusal to see and accept that perhaps their “interpretation” of the story is just… not correct.

When we attempt to deny or rationalize away certain interpretations of characterization, or certain progressions of events and how they relate to one another, the larger narrative just falls apart, you know? Of course it doesn’t make sense if you exclude large portions of it because you don’t want to see it or believe it’s happening, or important to the story.

Meanwhile, I’m over here loving every minute of it (okay… most minutes of it). So even if my interpretation isn’t absolutely 100% “correct” (and really, with any media, there’s always different ways to interpret everything, from what the color of the curtains might imply to who’s gonna get to fire Chekhov’s Gun in the third act), I’m content to continue to interpret it in a way that not only makes me personally happiest, but in a way that makes the story itself seem both logical and entertaining, as well.

Okay, that’s the end of the rational portion of this essay. Now on to the angry queer lady portion:

There’s more canon evidence for Dean and Cas being in love, or at the very least caring for one another to ridiculous, rather mind-numbing degrees, than there is for practically every canon heterosexual couple on television in the last fifty years. Think of any slow burn, will they-won’t they hetero couple, and [do the point-by-point checklist of all the tropes](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Ftvtropes.org%2Fpmwiki%2Fpmwiki.php%2FMain%2FLoveTropes&t=OGU4NjVjZDk1ZDNlNGNjYTlmYjM1MWNkM2YzZWNhMWZmZjVkMGE0NCxVaFdHN0I5cg%3D%3D&b=t%3AgQ2jjt29OviG-kJJpyAysQ&p=http%3A%2F%2Fmittensmorgul.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F175940394935%2Fdo-you-think-its-open-to-interpretation-whether&m=1) they burned through before they got to the love declarations and the kissing and the happily ever afters (or worse, the dramatic breaking up and getting back together, or even worse, the tragically breaking up forever). I challenge anyone to name one hetero-presenting couple who required as many love tropes for audiences to recognize and acknowledge they were in love. Yeah, I’m thinking of that whole “[they shared a pencil](http://goddessofidiocy.tumblr.com/post/145553808885/tbh-queer-romance-is-held-to-a-much-higher)” post.

So yeah, there is likely a measure of heteronormativity to it, and a lot of the arguments against also devolve into rather gross denouncements that there’s no way Dean’s not straight, because he said so that one time… Mr. “I lie professionally” who also never actually said he was straight… gah… I’m not gonna dig up every ancient meta post on the subject. If anyone is legitimately interested in understanding why making those same tired arguments just doesn’t have any legitimacy in a reasoned discussion, they can damn well do their own digging. It’s not like any of the evidence is difficult to uncover, and it’s not my job to spoon feed it to every naysayer myself.

I feel like I’m standing on a Mt. Everest size pile of rational, reasonable, well-argued analysis supporting the claim that Dean and Cas are in love. *stands back and points at my whole entire blog again* If anyone would like to come back at me with something even remotely worth my time and attention to persuade me to alter my interpretation, I suggest they get busy. I’ll just be up here on top of my mountain enjoying the clean, destiel-scented air up here.

And finally, who says it’s not canon? Ah, right. Moving goalposts. At this point, I think it’s ridiculous to suggest that Dean and Cas  _don’t_  love one another. And profoundly, at that. I mean, you don’t give up an army for one guy if you don’t at least like him a lil bit. You don’t shout down God begging him to bring back that dude you’re kinda buddies with, or sink into a suicidal funk that reverses completely within minutes of finding out said buddy’s alive again. You don’t offer to march to your death with your chum because he’s such a nice guy and all. I mean… honestly. How far in denial does someone have to be to suggest they don’t love each other? At this point, when comparing Sam and Dean’s reactions far into s13 to Cas’s death in 12.23, either you accept that Dean has much stronger and far different feelings about the loss of someone that Sam does love and considers a brother, or else you kinda have to assume that Sam’s just kind of a dick for not being as broken up about Cas’s death as Dean is. So… which interpretation do you think is the one they’re trying to convey?

Bleh, whatever. I await the inevitable inbox full of nastiness that I will cheerfully delete while judging every anon who sends it as someone who really should find a better hobby than antagonizing strangers on the internet over a work of fiction.

Anon, basically, don’t let the bastards grind you down, okay?

Now for some reason I feel like listening to Achtung Baby. Imma go do that and feel the love.

 

 

[Aug 9, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/176815156015/i-have-a-feeling-that-cas-is-going-to-be-focused)

75 notes

**Anonymous asked: i have a feeling that cas is going to be focused on jack more than dean as a way to no homo destiel. even though it would be out of character and not make sense, i just feel like its a way for them to shift the focus, the season 14 version of him going off to heaven alone, anything to separate them.**

Hi there! I’ve got to put a couple disclaimers on this before I attempt to reply, because this isn’t how I see any of this… I mean, the phrase “to no homo destiel” is just… not something I apply by default, you know? I can’t watch the show from that mindset, because it sucks all the fun out of it for me.

It’s just… how the story is being told, the narrative structure of the entire series, and understanding how the writers are approaching this. You have two choices: to assume that every time the characters are separated or have other concerns to deal with in the present moment, it’s because the writers hate destiel and are trying to kill it, or else you can look at the bigger picture and see they aren’t actually backtracking at all, but that three-dimensional, well written characters in a fantasy/horror narrative have other things to deal with than bringing the romance narrative to the surface in every single moment.

So, no. I fundamentally disagree with the notion that these are “no homo” scenarios. Dean and Cas (and every other character) have MULTIPLE ongoing emotional narrative arcs. I mean, Dean is also dealing with a lot of emotional baggage involving Sam, Mary, Jack… ALL the other characters, not to mention his own current situation.

Cas has a LONG history of baggage related to Jack going back to s12 that still must be dealt with, in addition to his current and immediate worry for Dean. But Jack ALSO has personal baggage with regard to what happened to Dean, and likely a LOT of baggage associated with the guilt he must feel because his failure to recognize Lucifer’s lies sooner led directly to Dean needing to take drastic measures to save them all from Lucifer.

So… yes, we know we’re going to see scenes of Cas and Jack dealing with this, and we’ve already been told (by Misha) that part of Cas’s PERSONAL emotional response to this is going to help him work through his own burden of guilt, and his own understanding of his importance to the Winchester family that he’s been struggling with for YEARS. I can’t underscore how essential this is for Cas as an individual, and how long we’ve been waiting for him to get to this point.

Not to mention, the things that are going to be uniting Jack and Cas– are going to be DIRECTLY related to Dean.

We also know that they will have to establish a narrative reason for Cas to be absent from at least a few episodes this season. If his contract is similar to what it’s been in the past (and this is ENTIRELY SPECULATION BASED ON GUESSES), then he will not be in approximately five to seven episodes. They must make that absence seem reasonable in the narrative. Because this is what our real-world production schedule demands. That’s not in any way to diminish Cas’s role, or the fact that his thoughts are likely mostly focused on helping Dean early in the season, but it’s just how things have to be because of contracts and budgets and storytelling needs. So, that’s the reality here, and that’s not something that whining about it will change.

But Cas’s entire emotional narrative doesn’t focus solely around Dean, you know? Even when he’s in the middle of doing something FOR Dean directly, he’s still got other things he’s concerned about. His existence isn’t just to serve Dean’s character.

I mean, think back to early s10, when he was drawn away by Hannah with the mission to round up rogue angels. But when Sam called to ask for help saving Dean, Cas’s mission went from 0 to 100000000 in the blink of an eye. I mean, I was joking about this with Lizbob:

> remember when he and Hannah spent 3 episodes bonding except Cas was like IT’S ALL ABOUT THE MISSION HANNAH  
> STOP HITTING ON ME
> 
> mittensmorgul  
> YEP
> 
> OUR FOCUS IS ON SAVING DEAN, HANNAH. WE MUST NOT THINK ABOUT ANYTHING OTHER THAN DEAN.
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> Sometimes I think you love the mission more than me, Castiel
> 
> mittensmorgul  
> Dean “the mission” Winchester
> 
> elizabethrobertajones  
> my favourite character back for season 14

I mean…

So no, Cas having a conversation or even an entire side quest with Jack  _while still at least tangentially focused on the larger mission of saving Dean_  is not a knee-jerk no-homo.

Context is important, the spiral narrative is important, Cas’s personal character development is important. He’s not just a prop for Dean, and not just on a destiel-fueled mission with no other emotional or physical consequences. That’s why he’s not just a one-dimensional side character, you know? Just like Dean’s personal, internal emotional growth is important to the overall narrative structure, so is Castiel’s.

This is definitely a Bigger Picture sort of thing. And I’m just gonna keep pointing at my Scheherazade tag as an explanation of that. :P

 

 

[Aug 13, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/176962451200/if-you-had-to-choose-one-episode-or-scene-for-dean)

32 notes

**Anonymous asked: If you had to choose one episode or scene for dean and cas to have "officially" gotten together, where do you think would've made the most sense? Personally I think the crypt scene would've been a really great place for it to happen**

Hello, anon! I know you sent this a while ago… possibly during gish week? So first off, apologies for taking so long to reply. But I’ve also been sitting on this for a different reason. I literally answered your question in my current WIP, about three weeks ago, before you sent this question, and I’ve been waffling over whether to just copy/paste an excerpt here. But… it’s too freaking spoilery so I’ve just been waffling and dithering for like two weeks now. :P

I swear, I have the most Dramatic™ problems.

I… don’t think there is a point, at least not with the perspective of hindsight, where it could’ve worked. I mean, from any point in canon, you could theoretically have them get together. For evidence of this, please see years’ worth of coda fic where they do exactly that after pretty much any episode you can name.

The difficult thing is that canon keeps marching on, with them NOT having gotten together, you know? To go back and alter any single point would be to change everything that came after.

To use your example, if they HAD confessed love in 8.17, and gotten together at that point, would Cas have run with the tablet? Would he have been captured by Crowley or the angels? Would he have bought into Metatron’s lies? Would he and Dean not have fought in 8.21? Would Dean have invited him to go to the church with them, so Metatron wouldn’t have had leverage to entrap him into his plan to kick all the angels out of Heaven? Would Dean have been so guiltily willing to help Cas? Would, working together, they have been prepared to stop Sam’s trials sooner? I mean… everything that happened AFTER 8.17 was contingent on Cas feeling the need to repent for having betrayed Dean, you know? If they’d gotten together, he… wouldn’t have betrayed Dean that way.

Cas would not have had his grace stolen, not have spent time as a human, not have experienced what it truly means to be human… and his character would’ve suffered for it. He wouldn’t have had to make the difficult choices he did in s9, stealing grace, examining his feelings of guilt and duty to Heaven. The whole Gadreel thing wouldn’t have happened, Dean might not have taken the Mark, become a demon, and eventually reunited God and the Darkness.

I mean, that sounds good in some respects, because they would’ve been spared a lot of heartache, but also through that heartache they have experienced a heck of a lot of individual character growth, you know? The story has progressed so far beyond that point now, and Dean and Cas (and Sam, and everyone else) has really evolved because of everything they’ve been through.

So no, for the rest of the series to stand as is, it’s contingent on them not having gotten together, as backward as this logic is…

I mean, I can see it happening in a thousand different ways, which is why I write fanfic. :P 

But I also know there’s a bigger story being told in canon, and I’m happily watching it all unfold.

 

 

[Aug 28, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/177471286485/i-was-thinking-about-mishas-recent-comments-on)

24 notes

**Anonymous asked: I was thinking about Misha’s recent comments on the whoopie cushion scene from 5.6. He said he came around to accepting it was funny so that’s why they insisted on keeping it in. Now I’m wondering if Show may have also wanted to demonstrate Dean’s growing fondness or attraction to Cas by pranking him. Kind of like an awkward flirtation. :)**

I… don’t really think so? I mean, fondness for Cas, absolutely. But I have a really hard time seeing romantic intent of any sort between Dean and Cas back in that era.

Remember this was only three episodes after 5.03, where Cas was absolutely *squinty confused* over such human things as lying, and human sexuality in general let alone the brothel Dean took him to. This was also two episodes after 5.04 where Dean saw the complete “corruption” of Cas by humanity (or this is how Dean would see endverse!Cas, indulging wantonly in all those human things Dean had been pushing at him in the previous episode and essentially given up on everything Dean really loves about him).

(I probably don’t need to talk about 5.05 here, Fallen Idols, with a wax museum and a god who assumes the identity of people his victims admire or idolize in order to kill them… I mean…)

Dean’s had a few shakeups about identity and Cas at the beginning of s5, and this is another reason I love the “childlike” twists of 5.06. Sure, in some ways Dean was trying to have “human fun” with Cas, but it was such an  _innocent_  sort of fun compared to dragging him to a brothel, giving him a beer, and sending him off with Chastity the hooker. This didn’t involve guns or fighting or sex or drugs or alcohol or even lying… (at least not when it really mattered… literally one of the reasons they were able to get through to Jesse was that they did tell him the truth… eventually).

And Cas was turned into a child’s toy (not the broken person Dean had seen in 5.04). This was almost a turning point for Dean where his friendship with Cas really did begin to be an actual friendship more than a working relationship or just an attraction. This really was (after “don’t ever change” at the end of 5.04) the beginning of the true fondness that developed between them.

And it’s definitely the first time that Dean has felt like he really could do something this silly and playful with Cas. Like he understands that Cas might be a bit baffled by him (and humanity in general sometimes), but Dean also is beginning to understand how he can interact with Cas on a human level. 

I love that stupid scene. And I’m eternally grateful the cast didn’t get veto power over that scene. I think they’re grateful in the long run, too.

Again, this is why I’m really glad J2M aren’t writing this show… >.>

 

[spn 5.06](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-5.06) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [and again I'm gonna point emphatically at that tag and hope people grok what I mean by it](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-again-I%27m-gonna-point-emphatically-at-that-tag-and-hope-people-grok-what-I-mean-by-it) [this was so long ago in the story it's like... still part of the introduction phase of the overall narrative here](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-was-so-long-ago-in-the-story-it%27s-like...-still-part-of-the-introduction-phase-of-the-overall-narrative-here) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	210. Chapter 210

[Sep 2, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/177678617305/when-do-you-think-dean-and-cass-relationship)

57 notes

**Anonymous asked: When do you think Dean and Cas's relationship became romantically coded in a consistent, linear, textual way? In other words, when do you think the writers started taking destiel seriously? I love the early stages of their relationship where it was based mainly on surface-level flirting and trying to figure each other out. But I think I really noticed a difference in the direction the writers were taking with them around S6. And of course it really took of in season 8.**

Oh gosh, this is a curious thing to ponder… I mean, you can look back at the entire history of the series and with the Wondrous Power of Hindsight, draw a straight line back to like… s1… and say it’s all being set up for Dean and Cas to have an endgame romantic relationship. But the Wondrous Power of Hindsight is… a slightly flawed lens, because of the nature of writing.

Let me explain.

Supernatural has been going on for a Really Long Time now, and it’s intensely self-referential. (see everything I’ve tagged “[it’s spirals all the way down](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/it's%20spirals%20all%20the%20way%20down/chrono)” if you don’t get what I mean here). The way they write the story in the present relies heavily on what they have already written in the past. It’s not fair to say they didn’t plant some narrative seeds years ago that are finally beginning to bear fruit now, but some of those were… selectively planted, while others were just happy accidents. Not that this isn’t good storytelling, or unintentional, or happened without any of them noticing trends and themes that they tended to lean on more and more over the years.

This is actually the mark of an incredibly fertile field of oodles of widely-scattered seeds that Dabb and Company are now going back through and weeding things out of (rip fuckface, for example), as well as fertilizing and pruning and watering and tending the garden of the seeds they want to see flourish, you know?

Why am I using gardening metaphors? Eh. Whatever. Hopefully that conveyed the point I was trying to make. Now that I’ve dug this hole for myself, may as well plant myself firmly in this soil and see what sprouts…

So at what point did the gardener step in and put up trellises for Dean and Cas? At what point did they begin actively encouraging them to grow together rather than just occasionally getting knocked into one another by the wind, so to speak? It’s a really difficult question.

I mean, there’s some obvious paralleling going on between them right from the start, with them bonding over the notion of absent and disappointing fathers, being thrown together by circumstance– even if that circumstance is the apocalypse. And they had chemistry with one another from the moment Cas barged through those barn doors (not to mention the whole “I resurrected you from Hell!” aspect of the story that is immediately romantic if you choose to see it that way… and it is a romance trope so that’s an entirely legit way to see it).

Sometimes during those early seasons their “profound bond” and increasingly close friendship was played up for laughs (the whole phone scene and their interactions with the cupid in 5.14, for example), sometimes it was played up for heartbreaking emotion (4.16, for example), and sometimes it was left to be an easy camaraderie, allowing the two of them to work together for a common goal. And all of it began to build this foundation for a much deeper relationship (whether they’d taken it down a more brother/friend road or what eventually became more and more romantically coded).

Even knowing that during the writing of s6, they were fully intending to kill Cas off, potentially permanently, it’s impossible to deny the fact they were trying to milk his eventual death for as much emotional suffering as possible… setting it up so that he’d sacrificed everything in order to spare Dean. And then we had s7, where Dean lost nearly everything over the course of the season, but Cas had been the #1 foundation stone in the pile of things they took from Dean. And like Dean finding out about Cas’s resurrection at the end of 13.05, finding Cas alive in 7.17 was the turning point of the entire emotional arc of s7. That’s when things began looking up and Dean began taking things back. :)

Which brings us to s8… which only continued to build on the themes set up before. They had a choice, and they chose to start throwing high quality fertilizer on Dean and Cas. :P

If nothing else, I’d say they’ve been writing it with underlying intent, quietly in the subtext, since then. And it began poking through into the text in a serious way in s10 (and then got derailed by the plot accordion of doom because they were getting too close to dangerous waters and had to dial it back when they were renewed for s11).

How seriously are they focusing on this now? I mean… after s13, and Dean’s pining, and now hopefully seeing some of that pining from Cas’s side in s14… well… Not to say they’re suddenly going to make wild love confessions or whatever, but they’re still continuing along, growing up that trellis steadily, you know?

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [why gardening metaphors? idk I was sitting on the porch while I was writing this :P](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/why-gardening-metaphors%3F-idk-I-was-sitting-on-the-porch-while-I-was-writing-this-%3AP) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

[Sep 4, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/177734776060/do-you-think-dean-and-cas-as-of-s13-are-aware)

31 notes

**Anonymous asked: Do you think Dean and Cas (as of s13) are aware that their feelings are mutual? The way I see it Dean definitely knows by now that Cas has feelings for him (although he probably wouldn't think it's as far as love because hes Dean :/) but Cas doesn't know that Dean reciprocates.**

Well, I mean… I think they both acknowledge they have deep, caring feelings for one another. Kinda hard for Dean to deny that Cas loves him and feels a part of his family after 12.12. Kinda hard for Cas to deny Dean loves him and considers him part of the family too.

But Cas also acknowledges that Dean loves and considers many people part of the family, and Dean acknowledges that Cas tossed in the “I love all of you” leaving a doorway to denial large enough to drive a semi through…

And Dean is the king of denial, and Cas thinks he always uses the right words. But they’re both still in doubt about what the actual nature of their feelings are, especially when mixed with so many Larger Cosmic Problems they have to contend with. The both of them are nitwits who will put the rest of the world before their own wants every time. I mean, yay that they’re such self-sacrificing heroes or their world would’ve ended years ago… but they’re both still learning they can still deal with horrible situations while also allowing themselves some personal emotional fulfillment as well…

They can have both, but they both doubt they’re allowed to have both… it’s a journey. They’re getting there.

 


	211. Chapter 211

[Sep 11, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/177992205400/i-always-love-to-wonder-how-theyre-going-to-take)

63 notes

**Anonymous asked: I always love to wonder how they're going to take Dean and Cas's relationship to the next level (not like, canon or anything) I mean more like the ways in which we learn more about them and watch them grow. Like the "you're our brother" being progress but also needing more. Like so many instances of what they say and do. And we got so much out of watching Dean grieve for Cas, I can't wait to see what this season does for their relationship!!**

hi hi! And of course, I can’t wait either. :)

It’s an ever-evolving thing, their relationship. And I mean… what’s your definition of “canon” here? Because mine is “everything that happens in canon.” And I mean… I assume you mean blatant romantic love confessions and kissing and stuff, and yeah by that definition I expect nothing. But there’s nothing about their relationship itself that isn’t canon, you know?

Dean pining away for Cas in early s13, to the point where he tried to take his own life in his grief, and then ONE EPISODE LATER, like HOURS LATER, he’s all giddy to the point that Sam calls him out on the dramatic emotional turnaround, and Dean literally says with complete sentences that they got Cas back, and isn’t that enough explanation?

And Cas was dead and in the Empty until Dean’s anguish pushed Jack into unconsciously reaching out with his power to wake Cas up, whereupon Cas had to fight his way out of the Empty after being shown a series of his worst failures, taunted with the fact that who he loves might not love him back the same way, and STILL he fought to return… I mean… 

What’s not canon about any of that?

And now we left s13 with Cas in this state over Dean:

I mean…

Yes, Dean had achieved his goal to kill Lucifer, to save Sam and Jack and the rest of the whole world in the process, but Dean himself was lost to Michael… Despite that arguably massive win, Cas lost one thing… Dean… and this is the result… so…

 

[spn 13.23](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-13.23) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [spn s14 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-speculation) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [what is your definition of canon? because this is mine](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/what-is-your-definition-of-canon%3F-because-this-is-mine) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 

 

 

[Sep 18, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/178234074075/how-do-you-remain-in-love-with-a-ship-for-so-many)

138 notes

**Anonymous asked: how do you remain in love with a ship for so many years? i tend to move on every couple of months. how do you stay so (amazingly) devoted?**

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

I mean, I don’t know about anyone else, but… I actually care about them? I mean, how do you just… move on from something you’re emotionally invested in? I… do not get that?

Then again, this is the first thing I’ve sought out the fandom for. The first show and the first ship that I’ve actually participated in personally. I’m not young, and yet I have never been compelled to write meta about a tv show before. Never felt the impulse to write fanfic before. So the fact I’m here at all is still a bit surprising to me (even nearly 7 years after I showed up here).

I find stuff I like, and then… just keep liking it? I guess?

Sorry this struck me as sort of a bizarre question, because I can’t even conceptualize just walking away from this, you know? Or I guess maybe you don’t… But trust me, this is the most baffling question I’ve been confronted with in a long time. I don’t even think I’m capable of giving you an answer to something that just seems obvious. Like I had a choice about it or something.

Heck you’re making me really think about this, though, so I’m gonna try to give you a serious answer.

Dean and Cas aren’t (obviously) your average ship. Not just that they’re two dude-presenting people. Not just that they’re a supernatural being and a human. Not just in the circumstances of their meeting, being the product of a destiny that had been ordained by God since the inception of the universe… I mean… that’s huge enough on its own, but there’s more to it than that.

There’s their individual arcs, character development, the overarching grand narrative of the entire series that’s slowly brought them closer and closer over the last ten years. They’ve endured through Apocalypses. Plural. They’ve saved the world together how many times now? And sacrificed themselves to save each other over and over again.

They’ve endured Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, and The Empty, through life and death and resurrection, possessions and transformations, and numerous times they thought they were saying their final farewell only for the universe to bring them back together again. Even when it seemed impossible.

It’s… cosmic.

Through all of this, they’ve shared ten years of quietly getting to know one another, conversations we never got to see (hello, mixtape!), evenings spent together we only hear about in passing as if it’s commonplace for them (hello, huckleberry!). We learn that despite everything we see onscreen, they have entire lives together that we can only imagine.

(I often refer to the fact that every season we see a total of less than 17 hours of their year play out on television. That leaves 8743 hours of their year unaccounted for… I mean… most of their year counts as a fanfic gap, if you think about it, ESPECIALLY since the show has become more intent on reminding us that they do loads of stuff offscreen that we never get to see…)

And the structure of the story, with the cases and the mytharc and Dean and Cas’s personal arcs, is… epic. I mean, it’s 1001 Nights. How can you NOT feel as captivated as Shahryar listening to Scheherazade’s unending stories until he fell completely in love with her? I get the same feelings from Dean and Cas. So. It’s not difficult at all to remain devoted. And I don’t think it’s particularly amazing, at that. It is what it is, and I’m here until the end (and probably long, long past it honestly… this is the sort of thing that doesn’t ever have to end, not really…)

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [the deancasversary](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-deancasversary) [i guess i'm just in love with their love? is that a good enough explanation?](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-guess-i%27m-just-in-love-with-their-love%3F-is-that-a-good-enough-explanation%3F) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

 


	212. Chapter 212

#  [Word of God](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/178288649895/word-of-god)

[Sep 20, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/178288649895/word-of-god)

391 notes

I think most people who follow this blog understand my feelings about PR and Word Of God statements relative to canon. I’ll try to quickly sum them up.

The way I watch Supernatural, the way I analyze Supernatural, is based on what actually happens in canon. I generally tend to disregard ALL “word of god” statements. Yes, I recognize them, and consider them, but ultimately they do not affect how *I* interpret the actual canon that is presented as the “finished product” that airs on tv.

There are also different levels of “word of god.” For example, comments that the writer or showrunner makes have to be considered with a different weight from what the network or PR department makes. The level of involvement in the actual production of canon is distinctly NOT THE SAME. A writer can speak to his own actual intent in crafting the narrative, while network executives have far less direct creative control over the final production. Their creative interpretation has far less to do with the final product than the writer who actually penned the episode, you know?

Same thing goes for actors. Yes, they are creatively interpreting the written material, acting it out in context, in canon. But  _they are not creatively in control of the narrative_. At least not to the extent that the writer or showrunner is. Or the editing department who assembles the final product according to the writers, directors, and showrunners’ instructions.

So yes, I will personally give more weight to comments made by writers than I will to comments made by actors or network executives who are not actively writing the story. But still, I will disregard even writer or showrunner comments if they contradict the evidence of my own eyes and experience in interpreting canon.

The author is dead, long live the author.

So why am I yammering on about this today? Bert and Ernie are gay. Or maybe they’re not. But the writer who wrote them for 30+ years explicitly said he wrote them as a loving gay couple! But the network and production company said they’re just really good friends! So what are we to believe?

Well, let me tell you my own personal experience of watching Bert and Ernie for the last 40+ years. I NEVER INTERPRETED THEM AS ANYTHING OTHER THAN A LOVING COUPLE. I never thought that was a strange interpretation of their relationship. My assumption, since I was a small child, was that Bert and Ernie were gay.

I never needed anyone in a position of authority over the narrative to tell me this, because I never doubted it. Neither the Word Of God announcement by the writer nor the PR scrambling and backtracking of the production company have any effect on my own personal interpretation of their relationship. NEITHER comment changes anything for me.

They were always gay, they’re still gay, and honestly anyone who is upset or uncomfortable with this needs to seriously examine their homophobia.

I really want to quote the “[they shared a pencil!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/178112969450/goddessofidiocy-tbh-queer-romance-is-held-to-a)” post here. Because yes, queer relationships are held to a higher standard. But the reason for this boils down, at its finest essence, to homophobia.

_NEARLY FIFTY YEARS_. Bert and Ernie have just quietly been together for nearly fifty years, and still people (including the company who produced the show) are sweating over the implication that this incredibly healthy and loving relationship might be interpreted as homosexual. Like… THIS is what we should all be disturbed by… The fact that so many people have this deep-rooted double standard about queer relationships versus heterosexual relationships, to the point they don’t even recognize how far they have to reach to defend their homophobia.

So no, this bit of Word Of God means little to me, as a person with eyes who has observed what I’d always believed was a clear representation of a healthy homosexual couple. 

So I advise everyone to continue to consume all PR, all Word Of God statements, with a large dose of salt, and remember that your own interpretation of canon doesn’t need anyone in a position of “authority” over the narrative to validate it.

Which brings is right back around to Supernatural, [Misha’s tweet in response to this](https://twitter.com/mishacollins/status/1042181825903251456), and destiel. Because as strange at it is, I feel like Misha’s incredibly tongue-in-cheek comment is essentially saying the same thing I’ve said here.

Canon is not affected by the commentary, either upholding or denying the statement that Bert and Ernie are gay. The way people have always interpreted the evidence of their eyes has not changed for people who are actually queer, and who didn’t even think twice about interpreting their relationship through that lens for decades. Learning that was exactly the writer’s assumption all along  _literally changes nothing_.

While I’m disappointed that the production company didn’t use this opportunity to promote inclusion, and instead have taken a markedly homophobic stand on the issue, I’m not particularly surprised by it. But again, it changes nothing about my own personal interpretation, and what seems to me to be obvious to anyone with eyes.

And that applies to how I watch Supernatural, as well. Sometimes Word of God statements, or actor or showrunner or network statements for that matter, will validate my personal read, and sometimes they will deny my personal read. I do not care either way. I find them all interesting, but ultimately I dismiss all such statements as irrelevant to the actual canon we’re presented with.

So what is canon? What qualifies a queer relationship as canon, in a world where a man and woman share a pencil and suddenly romance is alive, but two same-sex  _puppets_  can spend fifty years in a quietly committed and loving relationship and the mere NOTION that they might be gay for each other can garner an earth-shattering and horrified reaction from a wide swath of the general audience? Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll keep my own personal goalposts rather than continually reach for the homophobic majority’s ignorant and hateful and frankly disgusting metric.

  


[Originally posted by crowleysfavouritedemon](https://tmblr.co/Z1aT5d2Ta_Rwl)

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

  

 

[canon vs word of god](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/canon-vs-word-of-god) [word of god is not canon that's just not how this works](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/word-of-god-is-not-canon-that%27s-just-not-how-this-works) [supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural)[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [bert and ernie are gay](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/bert-and-ernie-are-gay) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [homophobia](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/homophobia)


	213. Chapter 213

[Oct 16, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179121232080/this-might-be-addressed-in-the-s14-premiere-i)

20 notes

**[spaceshipkat](http://spaceshipkat.tumblr.com/) asked: This might be addressed in the s14 premiere (I haven’t watched yet bc of work but I’m reading up on it), but do you think it’d be possible for Cas to enter Dean’s head the way he had before with the dream on the pier?**

Hi hi! And sorry if this is a spoiler you didn’t want, but since you said you’ve been reading spoilers, I’m assuming you wouldn’t have asked if you didn’t want me to spoil you on anything…

This wasn’t addressed in 14.01, and I’m not at all sure it’s even possible. Or if it would be something Cas could do even if he was at full power, simply because of his major concern with speaking to Dean that way back in 4.20, and the direct consequences it had all around. Namely this:

**CASTIEL** : We need to talk.   
 **DEAN** : I’m dreaming, aren’t I?   
 **CASTIEL** :  It’s not safe here. Someplace more private.   
 **DEAN** : More private? We’re inside my head.   
 **CASTIEL** : Exactly. Someone could be listening. 

And in 4.20, someone WAS listening. They ambushed him at the location he’d asked Dean to meet him at and dragged him back to Heaven for reprogramming. (read: torture and brainwashing)

And that was Cas talking to Dean directly, not trying to project himself into Dean’s head while Michael is inside the same building, you know? I don’t know what power Michael may have to block out that sort of interference with his vessel, even if you apply a Profound Bond overlay to facilitate any sort of contact that way.

That said, inside my own head, I like to imagine that Cas has been lowkey sending out waves of longing in Dean’s direction, begging him to hold on and fight Michael, sending him positive vibes that they haven’t given up on him, and they’re all working to find a way to save him, much like I suspect Dean was radiating in Cas’s direction back in s11. Whether or not any of those feelings have reached Dean, I have no idea. But I like to think they do.

As for whether we’ll see a scene like that in canon, I have no idea, but I would definitely love it. :)

I’m of the impression that we’re only gonna have Active Dinkle for one more episode, and then most of a season worth of flashbacks or Dean’s coming to terms with his experiences, so even if we don’t see this sort of scene explicitly in 14.02, that still wouldn’t rule it out completely… but again, we just don’t know.

(but we can enjoy imagining it, at least, because heck, nothing in canon has suggested we shouldn’t) :D

s[pn 14.01](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.01) [spn s14 speculation](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-speculation) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [dinkle](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/dinkle) [castiel winchester](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/castiel-winchester) [oh DEAN](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/oh-DEAN) [destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [spaceshipkat](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spaceshipkat)

 

 

 

 

[Oct 22, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179335278925/i-ship-jam-a-ton-but-im-kinda-worried-itll-be)

50 notes

**Anonymous asked: I ship Jam a TON but i’m kinda worried it’ll be made canon before destiel? After so many years and so many tragedies that clearly broke both Dean and Cas (beginning of season 13 until Cas came back, ending of season 13 after Dean was possessed by Michael), it would make so much sense for season 14 to be the year destiel is made canon, esp if there aren’t many seasons left. And it just makes me sad and a bit disappointed Jam might be canon before destiel (if that makes sense?) Any thoughts?**

Oh gosh, first off hi, and second off welcome to Supernatural where nobody’s ships go canon! 

*blows party horn*

*party!Cas arrives with sandwiches*

I’m almost entirely certain that Jam isn’t about to go canon. Like, I don’t believe that Jody and Sam are like… endgame happily ever after couple. They’re cute. Heck, I could see them getting together in a no strings attached sort of way. Not to say that even THAT will happen, but I don’t see them as being anything more than that.

And getting hopes up for destiel going canon at any point before the end of the series is just asking for pain. I don’t think it’s a realistic way to watch the show, you know? I think you’re setting yourself up to feel bitter when none of it goes canon.

Trust me, it doesn’t make sense for destiel to go canon for whatever random reason NOW. They’re the long game. I should really bring back my scheherazade tag…

 

[destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Every. Single. Year. that i have been in this fandom there's the assumption that it would make so much sense!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Every.-Single.-Year.-that-i-have-been-in-this-fandom-there%27s-the-assumption-that-it-would-make-so-much-sense%21) [just go for it there's nothing stopping them now! it's the perfect time!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/just-go-for-it-there%27s-nothing-stopping-them-now%21-it%27s-the-perfect-time%21) [paired with the belief they're either going there NOW or else obvs trashing it forever](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/paired-with-the-belief-they%27re-either-going-there-NOW-or-else-obvs-trashing-it-forever) [and just... no? that's not how this story has ever been told and they're not changing it now](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-just...-no%3F-that%27s-not-how-this-story-has-ever-been-told-and-they%27re-not-changing-it-now) [i'll brew a pot of tea and add to the collection of squashy pillows](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i%27ll-brew-a-pot-of-tea-and-add-to-the-collection-of-squashy-pillows) [and you're welcome to join me in the opulent comfort of the scheherazade sofa](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-you%27re-welcome-to-join-me-in-the-opulent-comfort-of-the-scheherazade-sofa) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


	214. Chapter 214

[Oct 27, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179492598640/i-must-have-been-just-as-disoriented-as-dean-the)

43 notes

**Anonymous asked: I must have been just as disoriented as Dean the first time but upon rewatching, I definitely see the silent communication between Dean and Cas as if they know they will have their privacy to properly reunite later. Too bad for us that it was off screen. :) And speaking of privacy, I’m thinking Cas stayed focused on the Michael memories when he was mind melding as asked of him though of course he has the ability to read everything Dean thinks. Very respectful and sweet. :)**

Aww, I’m not sure if we’re being encouraged to assume they’ve already had some sort of more private reunion yet, or to assume they haven’t really had enough time and space for that to happen. Bobo “Fanfic Gap” Berens left us a couple of potential points for this to happen:

Cas could’ve picked up Dean’s secret code hand signal of that point before he went to his room and theoretically could’ve arrived at Dean’s door at some point after he discovered the Forkprint, but if that were the case I think distress over said Forkprint would’ve jumped to the top of the Immediate Concern list and postponed any other discussion, you know?

After the Jody Call, Dean had to return to his room to pack his clothes for the trip. We saw him finishing off the packing in the library with Sam and Cas, but theoretically in between there was some period of time that had elapsed when they all went and fetched their gear bags (including Cas). With a bunker full of humans who need sleeping quarters, I wonder if Cas even has a room designated for his sole use anymore, or if he would’ve given it up for someone who actually needs a bed, you know? If that’s the case, where would Cas store his bag? (because he’s had that bag for ages, since at least 9.09). Maybe he keeps it wherever Dean keeps his bag, just for convenience’s sake? So maybe they did have a few minutes of private time to talk there, but we’re not sure.

After that point, they don’t have any other opportunities for personal talks in private.

And yeah, I’m pretty sure Cas was looking for specific information– about Michael and what caused that scar. I mean, that’s not to say that he doesn’t brush up against any other information, but heck, that entire scenario was one founded on the trust the two of them have in one another, in the immediate aftermath of a MASSIVE violation of Dean’s physical, mental, and emotional autonomy. And this is something Cas is EXTREMELY sensitive to, knowing how this specific power of his can potentially be used against someone’s will, and what a horrific violation it can potentially be. I don’t think that Cas would betray Dean’s trust in this situation like that.


	215. Chapter 215

[Nov 2, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179677149145/yay-ok-based-on-this-episode-14x4-can-we-be)

41 notes

**Anonymous asked: Yay. Ok... based on this episode (14x4) can we be 100% sure now that Destiel will be canon so the general audience really gets it? Like with Dreamhunter? I want it to be so obvious that contraindicating it will be like claiming the sun is green.**

Hi there! I have some shocking information to impart: a lot of the general audience  _does_  get it. And there’s zero guarantee that they ever will.

I’ve already had the canon is text AND subtext debate here, so at this point we’re not discussing anything going canon, but moving out of the subtext. I know that sounds like a petty quibble, but dangit, if we’re gonna discuss this, we’re gonna use the proper words.

They could literally make unequivocal love confessions, and there would be a portion of the audience who would not accept it. They could kiss, and there would still be a portion of the audience who would find some reason to say it was not enough proof. They could get freaking  _married_ , and there would be a portion of the audience who would dismiss it as “fanservice” and therefore not proof.

So you have to set realistic expectations here, understand how the story is being told (i.e. how it has ALWAYS been told), and accept that this is not an “inferior” way to tell the story. I have said this before, and I will say it again, thank HECK the writers have some integrity, and aren’t bringing this all directly to the main text for crappy fanservice reasons. They’re continuing to tell it the same way they always have.

Again, I will point emphatically to Scheherazade and 1001 Nights, because if you don’t understand storytelling integrity, you really need to at the very least read the wikipedia page about this.


	216. Chapter 216

[Nov 9, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179920714255/heres-something-ive-noticed-ive-been-in-this)

76 notes

**Anonymous asked: here's something i've noticed. i've been in this fandom many, MANY years, and each and every time it always complained about the same thing: why all this drama, why isn't the show letting them be happy and healthy for once. and now that they all have the healthiest relationships they've ever had in the show, still traumatised but talking and healthily expressing themselves, the same people are complaining about how boring it is, how there's no drama, no stakes. just what is wrong with people**

Eh, people watch for different things, and for different reasons, and with different expectations. For a good long while, the show followed a rather predictable formula. The entire Carver era (excepting the back half of s10 because wtf, and the second half of s11 because I credit that to Dabb era) followed this formula, and… excepting that back half of s11, it’s not my personal favorite.

But having come into the fandom just before that era began, and having watched the entire thing unfold in real time, and through all the meta that was written, I know loads of people thrived on it. 

I know people who are still watching waiting for the show to play out in that same sort of predictable fashion are bored and frustrated with it, but I’m personally loving this 100000x more because it’s actually interesting TO ME. The character arcs aren’t structured around a central main plot the way they have been in the past, and overall the show has become much more centered on the storytelling being driven BY the characters rather than the other way around.

I’ve seen people referring to “filler episodes,” but I think that’s entirely missing the point of what the actual overarching story even IS. I mean, back in season nine people were already mocking the old structure of the ever-increasing bad guy narratives that drove the story before. The whole “how do you even go worse than the actual devil as the Big Bad,” and jokingly commented something about Lucifer’s cousin’s college roommate, Fuckhands McMike. The guy who posited that was told it had already happened, and his name is Metatron and we definitely hate him more than the devil… I mean, the storytelling literally was becoming a joke of itself.

So where do you go from there to keep the story alive? To the actual characters we care about so much. TFW, Wayward, the core members are what we are all here for. You don’t stick around for fourteen years watching a show just to see how they’re all gonna defeat the next impossibly bigger big bad. WHO THE FUCK CARES?!

What do they know we also don’t really care about? Large groups of new characters! They don’t EXPECT us to care about them all, because they’re part of the landscape as much as the supposed “big bad.”

So who is actually the big bad? Why should we care about what all the characters are doing to fight said big bad? BECAUSE WE CARE ABOUT SAM, DEAN, AND CAS. And one step down from caring about them, we care about Jack, and Jody, and Donna, and Claire, and Alex, and Mary, and Bobby, and Rowena, and Charlie. All for different reasons, but we care about them mostly because SAM, DEAN, AND CAS care about them.

It’s impossible to become emotionally invested in everything, so they can’t legitimately expand that core, established cast that we DO care about, when they’re all already so deep into their own character journeys. But they HOPE we care about those characters enough to allow the narrative to be structured around THEM, rather than around their pursuit of Fuckhands McMike.

But I personally can’t comprehend how people are bored by this, because I am living for it. I can’t see how this lacks any drama. It’s just not the same kind of drama as it’s been in the past. I can’t see how someone can suggest there’s no stakes, either. I mean… Michael still is lurking in the background of the narrative, but I literally do not care about him. He’s making awful monsters that are making hunting incredibly dangerous in ways it hasn’t been for the Winchesters in years. When was the last time they were this unprepared on a regular basis, you know? Back in s12 they were plowing through hunts like nobody’s business, but now they’re finding all sorts of weirdness, from supervampires and superwerewolves who were immune to standard methods of killing them, to a djinn who can mess with reality instead of just being confined to messing with people inside their own minds. How… is any of this… boring?

I just have no idea what people are expecting, and I am personally reveling in the characters and their ongoing development. Everything else is set dressing.

And again, I’m gonna point at Scheherazade and just scream unintelligibly until people understand that that’s the structure for Dabb era. Trying to watch through Carver era lenses is gonna give you a migraine. The narrative focus has shifted out of all the little stories Scheherazade is telling, and watching all those other little stories drift by and focusing on those to try and tease out overarching structure is just… missing the entire point.

  

 

[spn 14.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.05) [narrative structure](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/narrative-structure) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [not even for the destiel implications of that tag but just...](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/not-even-for-the-destiel-implications-of-that-tag-but-just...) [this is how stories work](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/this-is-how-stories-work) [and I LOVE this story and i personally don't WANT them to start telling it some other way](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-I-LOVE-this-story-and-i-personally-don%27t-WANT-them-to-start-telling-it-some-other-way) [supernatural is never gonna be the flash or any of the other shows on the cw](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/supernatural-is-never-gonna-be-the-flash-or-any-of-the-other-shows-on-the-cw) [AND FUCK NO I DO NOT WANT IT TO BE](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/AND-FUCK-NO-I-DO-NOT-WANT-IT-TO-BE) [i mean not just because I am bored out of my mind by most of those shows](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-mean-not-just-because-I-am-bored-out-of-my-mind-by-most-of-those-shows) [and yes i did try to watch the flash because mr mittens does but fuck WHY?!](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/and-yes-i-did-try-to-watch-the-flash-because-mr-mittens-does-but-fuck-WHY%3F%21) [i will take this richness of characters i am emotionally invested in over... flashiness.... any damn day of the week](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/i-will-take-this-richness-of-characters-i-am-emotionally-invested-in-over...-flashiness....-any-damn-day-of-the-week) [Anonymous](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)

[Nov 9, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179935224235/heres-something-ive-noticed-ive-been-in-this)

76 notes

**Anonymous asked: here's something i've noticed. i've been in this fandom many, MANY years, and each and every time it always complained about the same thing: why all this drama, why isn't the show letting them be happy and healthy for once. and now that they all have the healthiest relationships they've ever had in the show, still traumatised but talking and healthily expressing themselves, the same people are complaining about how boring it is, how there's no drama, no stakes. just what is wrong with people**

[neven-ebrez](http://neven-ebrez.tumblr.com/post/179928267043/heres-something-ive-noticed-ive-been-in-this):

> [mittensmorgul](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/179920714255/heres-something-ive-noticed-ive-been-in-this):
>
>> Eh, people watch for different things, and for different reasons, and with different expectations. For a good long while, the show followed a rather predictable formula. The entire Carver era (excepting the back half of s10 because wtf, and the second half of s11 because I credit that to Dabb era) followed this formula, and… excepting that back half of s11, it’s not my personal favorite.
>> 
>> But having come into the fandom just before that era began, and having watched the entire thing unfold in real time, and through all the meta that was written, I know loads of people thrived on it. 
>> 
>> I know people who are still watching waiting for the show to play out in that same sort of predictable fashion are bored and frustrated with it, but I’m personally loving this 100000x more because it’s actually interesting TO ME. The character arcs aren’t structured around a central main plot the way they have been in the past, and overall the show has become much more centered on the storytelling being driven BY the characters rather than the other way around.
>> 
>> I’ve seen people referring to “filler episodes,” but I think that’s entirely missing the point of what the actual overarching story even IS. I mean, back in season nine people were already mocking the old structure of the ever-increasing bad guy narratives that drove the story before. The whole “how do you even go worse than the actual devil as the Big Bad,” and jokingly commented something about Lucifer’s cousin’s college roommate, Fuckhands McMike. The guy who posited that was told it had already happened, and his name is Metatron and we definitely hate him more than the devil… I mean, the storytelling literally was becoming a joke of itself.
>> 
>> So where do you go from there to keep the story alive? To the actual characters we care about so much. TFW, Wayward, the core members are what we are all here for. You don’t stick around for fourteen years watching a show just to see how they’re all gonna defeat the next impossibly bigger big bad. WHO THE FUCK CARES?!
>> 
>> What do they know we also don’t really care about? Large groups of new characters! They don’t EXPECT us to care about them all, because they’re part of the landscape as much as the supposed “big bad.”
>> 
>> So who is actually the big bad? Why should we care about what all the characters are doing to fight said big bad? BECAUSE WE CARE ABOUT SAM, DEAN, AND CAS. And one step down from caring about them, we care about Jack, and Jody, and Donna, and Claire, and Alex, and Mary, and Bobby, and Rowena, and Charlie. All for different reasons, but we care about them mostly because SAM, DEAN, AND CAS care about them.
>> 
>> It’s impossible to become emotionally invested in everything, so they can’t legitimately expand that core, established cast that we DO care about, when they’re all already so deep into their own character journeys. But they HOPE we care about those characters enough to allow the narrative to be structured around THEM, rather than around their pursuit of Fuckhands McMike.
>> 
>> But I personally can’t comprehend how people are bored by this, because I am living for it. I can’t see how this lacks any drama. It’s just not the same kind of drama as it’s been in the past. I can’t see how someone can suggest there’s no stakes, either. I mean… Michael still is lurking in the background of the narrative, but I literally do not care about him. He’s making awful monsters that are making hunting incredibly dangerous in ways it hasn’t been for the Winchesters in years. When was the last time they were this unprepared on a regular basis, you know? Back in s12 they were plowing through hunts like nobody’s business, but now they’re finding all sorts of weirdness, from supervampires and superwerewolves who were immune to standard methods of killing them, to a djinn who can mess with reality instead of just being confined to messing with people inside their own minds. How… is any of this… boring?
>> 
>> I just have no idea what people are expecting, and I am personally reveling in the characters and their ongoing development. Everything else is set dressing.
>> 
>> And again, I’m gonna point at Scheherazade and just scream unintelligibly until people understand that that’s the structure for Dabb era. Trying to watch through Carver era lenses is gonna give you a migraine. The narrative focus has shifted out of all the little stories Scheherazade is telling, and watching all those other little stories drift by and focusing on those to try and tease out overarching structure is just… missing the entire point.
> 
> Lol @ me next time, anon and Laura. 😂😂 It’s preference. I personally like to know what I’m supposed to be watching TOWARDS when it comes to storytelling in tv format. It’s not like any other storytelling imo. For tv, there’s a “stake” that is there to make you actively want to tune in each week. I think… Supernatural simply doesn’t care to do that anymore. It has its audience and thinks it has them for the rest of the run without trying so it has decided to drop the stakes for now. Which I get, but also don’t like.
> 
> And while I liked Carver era for its meta and symbolic worth, the stakes drama on characterization wore me personally incredibly thin and made me ready to give it up. You can have stakes and drama without it crucifying character development. There can even be a balance. But this season? This season ain’t it, lol. And yeah. I get it. The show is old as balls and Dean being possessed is like the one drama card left they haven’t played for TFW character centered drama, so they introduced it, then immediately backed it off the burner to simmer without letting it cook basically any. All I can say is that as a designer it’s not the choice I would have made, to leave the audience to stare at unboiling water while the show starts literally making a sandwich instead. It’s like the show hasn’t actually told you what’s for dinner tho, ya feel? For broadcast tv writing in particular, that’s just not smart, regardless of show age.
> 
> I’ve watched the show live for over 7 years and this is the absolute slowest and toughest my engagement has ever been. I’ve now gone days without watching a new episode, feeling like I’m probably not missing much. And surprise! I’m not! And I know you’d probably consider this not the type of criticism you’d like to engage in on your blog, Laura. But we’re good friends. You know me. This response is only meant to elaborate on your anon’s frustrated “what is wrong with people”, when I’m one of those people. It’s not that I hate the characters having healthy relationships, it’s that the show has offer no dramatic counter balance to this. And the show is a drama, end of story. 🤷🏻♀️

Oh gosh… I wasn’t just @’ing you… I probably saw a dozen posts last night that I was just yelling at here.

But the thing is, I feel like they are explicitly telling us what’s for dinner. And it’s a hell of a lot tastier to me than boiled water. I’ll take this huge sandwich any day over a big pot of boiled water.

And I absolutely do know you’re not trying to start A Drama here, because I do get what you’re saying. I just don’t know what else to tell the anons who are completely engaged, finding this sandwich delicious, and wondering why there seems to be a substantial number of people who are finding it completely meh, and only wondering when the water is gonna start boiling again, you know?

In past seasons, that sense of drama came from the engagement of stringing along the viewer through the storyelling of the mytharcs– yes even s1 was “Where’s dad, and did he find the thing that killed mom yet so we can complete our lifelong revenge quest?” These were the early seasons of the 1001 Nights metaphor, where the characters literally lived and died by how well they could tell those stories. There wasn’t the same depth of involvement, because the relationship between the narrator and the audience was one of, “okay, I see you’re telling me this engaging story, but I’ll most likely kill you in the morning,” and that underlying mytharc NEEDED to carry the characters through. It was the drama that powered the show forward.

But as seasons progress, just like as the 1001 Nights progresses, this has shifted from the early days of Scheherazade telling increasingly more fantastical tales to keep her listener engaged into slowly forming a real bond with one another. It became less about her worrying that Shahryar was going to grow bored with her stories and execute her like he had with all his other wives, and more about the two of them beginning to understand and respect one another. Her stories didn’t have to carry that weight of Life or Death, and Shahryar had more reasons to want to continue listening to Scheherazade’s stories than the stories themselves. His motivations became just as much about his fascination with her, and who she was beyond just this infinite well of interesting stories she could tell him. She became a person worthy of understanding and relating to entirely DESPITE the stories she was telling.

Yes, the stories were still interesting and fun for him, but they gradually shifted into the background and became more of an excuse for him to NOT have to kill her in the morning, because that’s always what he’d done with his other wives, even as he began to care more about HER than about HER STORIES SHE COULD GIVE HIM.

Yes, her stories are still important, but Supernatural is treating that mytharc like her stories in the latter days of those 1001 Nights. As more of an excuse for her to continue to engage her listener rather than the sole motivation sustaining her life into the next season.

Which is why I am personally loving this sort of storytelling. I don’t know how else to explain why I am completely enraptured by it, even while I completely understand that not everyone might find it as exciting as I do. It is what it is, but I can’t help but find it far more engaging personally.

Which I think is entirely amusing, because as a writer, Dabb’s storytelling is exactly my personal brand of fiction. Like… if I wrote Supernatural, this is what I’d be writing. It’s exactly how I write fic, leaning heavily into the rich layers of history, character development, references, narrative mirrors, and callbacks to tell the story, rather than relying on the outside force of the mytharc Big Bad to drag the character narratives along.

I get what you’re saying, that you were hoping they could do both, or make both things equally as prominent in the narrative, but that’s just not how the story is being told. The mytharc stuff is still happening, but it’s effectively become the “filler.” It’s the excuse to drive the character narrative forward, rather than the motivation for us to engage with the characters in the first place. We’re supposed to be the Shahryar here, who has come to care more about Scheherazade herself despite her stories, rather than because of them.

I guess I’m only confused about the impression that they’ve in any way backed off the character stuff. Like, sure their interpersonal relationships are not the source of drama and trauma they have been in the past. They aren’t manufacturing that tension by hammering on the unhealthy coping strategies, lying and hiding things from each other, or dark self-sacrificing and teeth gnashing man pain rearing its ugly head. But I can’t complain about the depth of individual character study that Meredith gave us in this episode.

Sam is feeling his way through his new role as the leader– a role he’s been trying to prove he’s worthy of since the pilot episode. His feelings of needing to prove himself to everyone else is finally flowering into the way he’s crafted his role as Chief, and how that is driving him forward emotionally now. That’s what’s informing his character development going forward– his choices and his care for people and the way he’s stepped up from the “kid’s table” and defining himself in this new adult role. It’s come with challenges he never expected, and dealing with them is what’s informing his growth now. He’s finally able to grow this way because the Big Bad isn’t the sole thing motivating his need to keep fighting. And neither is his sense of guilt or duty or devotion to Dean. I find this line of storytelling to be far more satisfying in what we’re learning about Sam.

Same with Dean… he’s finally taking his own advice and letting the past go as much as he can, and discovering what life can be like if he follows his own heart. It’s hard, and he’s struggling with his own identity in ways he never has before, when it’s motivated by the people around him that he cares for rather than what the mytharc would demand of him. And again, I’m much more interested in Dean living for Dean than just living to keep saving the whole world over and over again.

And Cas! Oh gosh, Cas. Who’s finally taking on the role of aspiring Master of Humanity, who’s taken on a student in order to complete his personal training. He’s experiencing so many of his own personal struggles of the past– not through how he’s forced to deal with the mytharc, and react to the next Huge Threat to the Cosmos, but through imparting everything he’s learned, revealing himself TO himself in the process. It’s honestly the most fascinating character arc I’ve ever watched unfold on television. And sure, he’s not in every episode and I do feel the lack of him when he’s not on screen, but that’s just reality and isn’t going to change, so I have learned to let that go and relish what we DO see. Because it has been POWERFUL this season.

I guess I just don’t see how they’ve sacrificed character development, when I’ve seen it as a deep dive into some of the most intense character development we’ve had, like, ever. It’s just not happening in the same way it has in the past, delivered through angst and throwing themselves on grenades for each other at every turn. 

  

 

[spn s14 spoilers](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-s14-spoilers) [spn 14.05](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/spn-14.05) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [aka the era of the mytharc as filler and the character stuff as primary focus](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/aka-the-era-of-the-mytharc-as-filler-and-the-character-stuff-as-primary-focus) [I think that's only gonna become stronger the closer we get to the eventual series end](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/I-think-that%27s-only-gonna-become-stronger-the-closer-we-get-to-the-eventual-series-end)


	217. Chapter 217

[Dec 13, 2018](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/181088430550/i-personally-dont-think-theyre-headed-towards)

8 notes

**Anonymous asked: I personally don't think they're headed towards textual canon. I'd be ecstatic if they did, and I'm so happy with what they're doing with destiel now, but for the past couple seasons they've seemed pretty comfortable with this level of subtext and don't seem to be making narrative moves towards textual canon. Like, it just seems they've reached the ceiling and are staying put and just fleshing out where they are instead of going further. It's interesting this season.**

(Canon anon here. Haha that rhymes!) I just realized that could potentially stir up some wank even though that was not even remotely my intention, so if you don’t feel comfortable publishing it that’s fine! I think my point was just that based on what i’m seeing now and the past couple seasons, they seem to have reached a comfortable plateau to expand on instead of carrying it to the next level. If that makes sense.  
  


I like expanding on the current plateau! I love the way they’re exploring the characters as individuals. All of them!

With no foreseeable end date for the show in sight, I’m perfectly happy to let them swim out a bit from shore with all of the character development and the character arcs taking precedence over the mytharc stuff. If they’re content to splash around in the subtext for a good long while, growing everyone individually first, I’m happy to wait.

But at the same time, making any sort of definitive statement on whether or not they will eventually move toward textual acknowledgement in canon is wildly premature. Because of ^^.

I love this whole entire show, not just the possibility for canon textual destiel. And I don’t watch from week to week measuring the textual progress toward eventual destiel, much as I love flailing about what destiel content we  _do_  get week to week.

I hope this makes sense. I’m honestly this chill about all of it, because  _I like this show_ , but also  _I love these characters_.

  

 

[the destiel](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-destiel) [the scheherazade of supernatural](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/the-scheherazade-of-supernatural) [Anonymou](http://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/tagged/Anonymous)


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